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August 


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THOUGHTS  ABOUT  ART. 


BY 


PHILIP  GILBERT  HAMERTON, 


AUTHOR    OF    "A    PAINTER'S    CAMP. 


A    NEW    EDITION,    REVISED    BY    THE    AUTHOR. 


USI7ERSIT7 


BOSTON: 
ROBERTS     BROTHERS. 

1871. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress  in  the  year  1871,  by 

EGBERTS  BROTHERS, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 


CAMBRIDGE : 
PRESS  OF  JOHN  WILSON  AND   SON. 


TO 

WILLIAM   WYLD, 

CHEVALIER   OF   THE    LEGION    OF  HONOUR, 
MEMBER     OF     THE     BOTAL     ACADEMY     OF     AMSTERDAM. 

MY  DEAR  WYLD,  —  When  the  "Painter's  Camp"  and  "  Thoughts 
about  Art"  were  issued  together  as  one  work,  the  whole  was  dedicated  to 
you.  Now  that  they  are  distinct  books,  I  renew  the  dedication  in  each  of 
them ;  not  regretting  that  my  affection  for  you  personally  and  admiration 
for  your  art  should  be  commemorated  in  two  books  instead  of  one. 

Ever  yours  most  faithfully, 

P.  G.  HAMERTON. 


UHIVBR3IT7 


CONTENTS. 


I.  PAGE 

THAT  CERTAIN  ARTISTS  SHOULD  WRITE  ON  ART     .     .        1 

II. 
PAINTING  FROM  NATURE 16 

III. 
PAINTING  FROM  MEMORANDA 53 

IV. 
THE  PLACE  OF  LANDSCAPE    PAINTING  AMONGST  THE 

FINE  ARTS 85 

V. 

THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  PHOTOGRAPHY  AND  PAINTING    113 

VI. 
WORD  PAINTING  AND  COLOR  PAINTING 145 

vn. 

TRANSCENDENTALISM  IN  PAINTING 161 

VIII. 
THE  LAW  OF  PROGRESS  IN  ART    . 174 

IX. 

ANALYSIS  AND  SYNTHESIS  IN  PAINTING    .  180 


vi  Contents. 

X.  PAGB 

THE  REACTION  PROM  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  .     .     .     .     .    200 

XI. 
THE  PAINTER  IN  ms  RELATION  TO  SOCIETY  ...    208 

XII. 
PICTURE  BUYING .    .    239 

XHI. 
THE  HOUSING  OF  NATIONAL  ART  TREASURES      .    .    262 

XIV. 
FAME 279 

XV. 
ART  CRITICISM 290 

XVI. 
PROUDHON  AS  A  WRITER  ON  ART 305 

XVII. 
Two  ART  PHILOSOPHERS 334 

XVIII. 
FURNITURE 346 

XIX. 
THE  ARTISTIC  SPIRIT  369 


PREFACE  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITION, 


IN  1862, 1  published  a  work  in  two  volumes,  entitled 
"A  Painter's  Camp  in  the  Highlands,  and  Thoughts 
about  Art."  Each  of  these  volumes  was,  in  fact,  a  dis- 
tinct work,  but  they  were  issued  together  in  order  to 
get  an  audience  for  the  Essays.  My  ambition  was  not 
to  be  a  writer  of  travels,  but  a  writer  on  art,  and  the 
"Painter's  Camp"  was  published  to  float  the  Essays, 
as  a  merchant  ship  may  carry  troops.  Since  then  the 
position  aimed  at  has  been  won ;  that  is,  an  audience 
has  been  found,  and  there  is  no  longer  any  need  to 
keep  the  books  together. 

It  has  not  been  considered  advisable,  however,  to 
republish  either  volume  exactly  as  it  was  first  issued. 
Every  comparatively  inexperienced  writer  has  great 
faults  which  care  and  labor  can  alone  remove.  My 
faults  eight  years  ago,  whatever  they  may  be  now, 
were  needless  prolixity  and  an  appearance,  which  the 
reader  is  entreated  to  believe  was  only  an  appearance, 
of  egotism  and  conceit.  In  a  narrative,  of  which  I  was 
myself  the  hero,  some  degree  of  egotism  could  scarcely 
have  been  avoided,  and  would  not  have  merited  cen- 


viii  Preface  to  the  American  Edition. 

sure;  but  from  simple  want  of  literary  craft  the  pro- 
noun I  came  in  so  frequently  that  the  book  conveyed 
an-  impression  of  self-assertion,  which  did  scant  justice 
to  the  real  feelings  of  its  author.  This  may  happen,  as 
all  practised  writers  are  aware,  when  an  author  thinks 
too  often  of  his  own  qualifications,'  and  introduces  such 
references  to  his  own  knowledge  as  the  following :  "  I 
have  not  had  much  experience  in  dissection,  but  so  far 
as  my  knowledge  of  anatomy  goes  I  should  say  that 
such  or  such  a  bone  is  insufficiently  marked."  The 
allusion  to  self  in  a  phrase  of  this  kind  arises  from  two 
feelings,  neither  of  which  is  blameworthy.  The  critic 
feels  the  necessity  for  information;  and,  at  the  same 
time,  having  asked  himself  whether  he  has  information 
enough  to  speak  on  the  point,  preludes  his  observation 
with  a  disclaimer  of  his  own  importance  as  an  author- 
ity. And  yet,  simply  because  that  unfortunate  little 
pronoun  I  occurs  twice  in  the  phrase,  it  conveys  an 
impression  of  self-assertion,  and  the  confident  critic 
who  assumes  his  own  infallibility,  and  curtly  says  that 
the  bone  is  wrong,  without  troubling  either  his  readers 
or  himself  with  any  reference  to  his  own  qualifications 
for  judging  the  matter,  seems  more  modest  because  he 
is  less  egotistic.  An  English  critic  of  note,  who  has 
studied  modesty  as  an  art  (his  natural  organ  of  mod- 
esty being  so  small  as  to  require  cultivation),  has  pushed 
the  avoidance  of  egotism  so  far  that  he  never  says  "  I 
believe,"  or  "  I  hope,"  or  "  I  saw,"  but  "  it  is  believed," 
"  it  is  hoped,"  and  such  a  thing  "  has  been  observed." 
The  apparent  conceit  of  the  "Painter's  Camp"  was 
due  to  ignorance  of  these  precautions,  and  to  a  temper 
which  would  have  disdained  them,  not  from  vanity  but 


Preface  to  the  American  Edition.  ix 

from  sincerity.  I  exposed  myself  also  to  the  attacks 
of  disingenuous  critics,  by  saying  things  about  myself 
which  were  capable  of  easy  misrepresentation ;  as,  for 
example,  when  I  said  that  I  was  the  truest  painter  of 
Highland  scenery  who  had  ever  rendered  it,  the  state- 
ment, as  the  context  showed,  bearing  reference  to  topo- 
graphic truth  alone,  which  is  not  an  artistic  merit  at 
all,  but  a  matter  of  simple  choice  and  will.  In  that 
sense  the  phrase  was  strictly  true ;  but  a  critic  detached 
it  from  the  context,  and  made  it  out  that  I  considered 
myself  the  truest  painter  of  Highland  landscape,  in  a 
sense  which  involved  artistic  qualities  of  a  very  high 
kind,  and  so  it  appeared  that  I  was  filled  with  conceit 
so  monstrous  as  to  be  scarcely  compatible  with  sanity, 
and  this  at  a  tune  when  I  habitually  destroyed  half  my 
pictures  because  they  did  not  seem  to  me  good  enough 
to  be  exhibited.  Critics  of  more  genial  and  kindly 
temper  saw,  however,  the  real  cause  of  defects,  which 
they  rather  regretted,  than  reproved  ;  and  few  books  so 
entirely  devoid  of  literary  art  have  enjoyed  so  much 
success  as  the  "  Painter's  Camp." 

The  fault  of  prolixity  was  due  to  over-anxiety  to  be 
understood.  In  the  common  intercourse  of  life,  I  had 
always  found  that  to  make  people  understand  things 
was  a  matter  of  prodigious  difficulty.  For  instance,  it 
had  always  been  next  to  impossible  to  make  people 
understand  why  I  preferred  painting  in  a  hut  to  paint- 
ing out  of  doors  in  the  rain,  and  why  I  preferred  insub- 
mersible  life-boats  to  common  open  boats.  Hence  the 
notion  fixed  itself  in  my  mind,  that  explanation  could 
never  be  clear  enough,  or  minute  enough,  or  repeated 
often  enough,  and  that  if  a  position  had  to  be  defended 


x  Preface  to  the  American  Edition. 

it  was  impossible  to  get  together  too  strong  a  force  of 
authorities.  I  did  not  understand  then  what  Scarlett, 
the  advocate,  understood  so  well  when  he  said  that  if 
he  had  five  or  six  good  reasons  he  only  gave  one  to 
the  jury  —  his  best.  Readers  are  divisible  into  two 
distinct  classes :  those  who  are  capable  of  comprehend- 
ing an  author,  and  those  who  are  not.  The  first  class 
enter  into  your  thought  at  once,  but  the  second  never 
enter  into  it,  and  all  explanation  is  thrown  away  upon 
them.  I  have  learned  this  at  last,  and  now  write  ac- 
cordingly ;  but  when  the  "  Painter's  Camp  "  first  came 
out,  I  was  in  a  condition  of  much  bewilderment  about 
my  audience,  not  knowing  either  whom  I  was  address- 
ing, or  when  I  had  said  enough. 

The  result  of  these  natural  advances  in  literary  ex- 
perience has  been  a  revision  of  the  whole  book ;  but  as 
patches  of  new  cloth  do  not  look  well  on  old  clothes, 
and  as  an  author  produces  quite  a  different  kind  of 
fabric  at  the  end  of  eight  years,  nothing  has  been 
altered  except  by  erasure.  The  bits  of  unnecessary 
egotism,  the  long  explanations,  the  tiresome  repetitions, 
have  been  carefully  suppressed ;  but  what  remains,  re- 
mains in  the  old  words.  New  essays  have  been  added, 
so  that  the  book  might  represent  the  author  fairly. 

In  the  epilogue  to  "  A  Painter's  Camp,"  allusion  was 
made  to  an  essay  which  is  here  given  in  an  abridged 
form  —  that  entitled  "  The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to 
Society."  It  gave  some  offence  in  England  because 
it  rebuked  what  Ruskin  calls  "the  excessively  vulgar 
and  excessively  shallow  English  idea  that  the  profes- 
sion of  an  artist  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  a  liberal  one." 
All  that  I  regret  about  it  is,  that  it  was  not  stronger 


Preface  to  the  American  Edition.  xi 

in  its  antagonism,  and  more  cunning.  The  contempt 
for  artists  is  one  of  the  forms  of  Philistinism,  or  resist- 
ance to  culture.  I  dare  say  you  may  have  in  America 
something  resembling  our  British  Philistinism,  though 
you  can  scarcely  have  any  thing  so  abominable,  be- 
cause you  have  not  got  the  genuine  British  stolidity  in 
your  temperament.  But  it  is  a  fact,  that  in  England 
a  very  considerable  majority  in  the  upper  classes  have 
settled  it  amongst  them  that  art  is  not  a  fit  profession 
for  a  gentleman,  and  this  great  decision  of  society  does 
not  seem  good  and  acceptable  to  the  small  intellectual 
class,  who  are  constantly  calling  it  in  question.  They 
tell  me  now  (I  have  lived  in  France  for  the  last  six 
years)  that  artists  are  very  much  petted  in  England  at 
present,  by  way  of  compensation  for  the  old  contempt. 
They  used  to  be  Pariahs,  and  now  they  are  pets ;  but 
artists  ought  neither  to  be  Pariahs  nor  pets,  and,  of  the 
two,  the  condition  of  the  Pariah  is  preferable.  The  one 
thing  which  artists  want,  and  which  they  have  never 
yet  been  able  to  get,  is  equality.  They  want  to  be 
treated  seriously,  as  men  occupied  in  a  great  pursuit, 
and  whether  they  fail  or  succeed  as  individuals,  the 
greatness  of  the  pursuit  should  ensure  this  seriousness 
of  consideration.  What  makes  the  position  of  an  artist 
disagreeable,  outside  of  small  and  exceptionally  intelli- 
gent circles  in  capital  cities,  is,  that  he  is  not  taken 
seriously,  and  has  to  bear  either  contempt  or  compli- 
ments. I  know  an  excellent  artist  in  Paris,  who  is 
always  exasperated  when  a  noble  friend  of  his  meets 
him  in  society,  for  the  noble  friend  invariably  offers  his 
salutation  thus:  "Bonj our, Monsieur,  et  faites  vous  tou- 
jours  de  jolies  choses?"  and  the  detestable  phrase  is 


xii  "  Preface  to  the  American  Edition. 

accompanied  by  a  detestable  grin.  In  the  same  taste  a 
gentleman  used  to  salute  a  violinist  of  his  acquaintance 
with  a  pantomimic  imitation  of  fiddling,  and  the  ques- 
tion "  whether  he  had  been  doing  any  thing  of  that 
kind  lately  ?  "  accompanied,  like  the  Frenchman's  ques- 
tion, by  a  grin.  If  people  could  only  realize  the  kind 
of  labor  and  aspiration  in  which  artists  who  are  artists 
have  continually  to  live,  they  would  at  least  take  them 
seriously.  If  it  is  settled  that  men  lose  caste  by  paint- 
ing, let  it  be  settled;  but  then  let  painters  enjoy  the 
sort  of  consideration  which  is  given  to  carpenters  and 
blacksmiths,  and  which  is  due  to  working  men  in  every 
laborious  trade.  People  who  scold  their  contemporaries 
need  not  hope  to  be  either  liked  for  it  or  paid  for  it, 
and  when  I  opened  this  matter  in  England,  I  kn£w  that 
it  was  enough  to  sink  my  book;  but  it  seemed  that 
some  good  might  be  done,  and  I  determined  to  attempt 
it.  Since  then  it  has  become  clear  to  me,  that  since  all 
persons  who  understand  art  give  artists  the  sort  of  con- 
sideration which  they  deserve,  the  best  way  to  obtain 
this  consideration  for  artists  is  not  so  much  to  ask  for 
it  directly  as  to  endeavor,  in  a  general  way,  to  spread 
sound  ideas  about  art. 

One  of  my  English  critics  has  blamed  me  for  want 
of  faith  in  art,  because  I  admit  that  its  power  is  very 
limited.  All  spiritual  power  is  limited  in  reality  to 
those  who  receive  it  willingly ;  if  it  ever  seems  to  exer- 
cise any  other  action,  it  intrudes  'on  the  domain  of  tem- 
poral power.  For  instance,  when  Lacordaire  preached 
in  Notre  Dame  he  was  exercising  the  spiritual  power; 
but  when  the  Church  of  Rome  enforced  her  authority  by 
punishing  heretics,  she  resorted  to  temporal  means,  and 


Preface  to  the  American  Edition.  xiii 

was  so  far  a  temporal  power.  Now,  painting  is  purely 
a  spiritual  power,  and  it  influences  only  those  who  are 
willing  to  be  influenced.  A  power  of  this  kind  is  great 
or  small  in  proportion  to  the  numbers  of  its  willing 
adherents,  and  the  numbers  of  persons  who  are  in  any 
appreciable  way  influenced  by  painting  are  not  great 
in  proportion  to  population.  The  fact  that  adherents 
are  willing  does  not  prove  weakness,  but  the  fact  that 
none  but  willing  adherents  obey  the  call,  when  few  are 
willing,  places  every  spiritual  power  at  a  disadvantage 
in  comparison  with  the  temporal  powers,  because  these 
last,  with  the  strength  given  to  them  by  the  adhesion 
of  some,  compel  the  adhesion  of  others.  But  I  should 
be  sorry  if  any  reader  supposed  that  I  under-estimated 
the  power  which  art  does  possess.  Art  has  a  kind  of 
influence  which  it  would  take  pages  to  define,  but 
which,  if  a  man  wields  it,  places  him  amongst  the  spir- 
itual powers.  A  painter  has  no  lordship  over  the  lib- 
erty of  men ;  he  cannot  govern  them  in  the  temporal 
way,  but  he  has  access  to  very  deep  and  subtle  feelings 
in  the  few  who  understand  him  and  receive  his  ideas, 
and  through  these  feelings  he  exercises  lordship  of  an- 
other kind.  It  is  the  old  duality  of  priest  and  baron. 
The  baron  of  these  days  is  not  always  a  soldier,  he  may 
be  a  manufacturer ;  and  the  priest  of  these  days  is  not 
always  a  clergyman ;  he  may  be  a  writer,  or  even  a 
painter.  'But  the  broad  distinction  remains,  and  all 
who  govern  by  force  or  money  are  of  the  temporal 
power ;  all  who  influence  by  persuasion,  by  intellect,  by 
sympathy,  are  of  the  spiritual  power.  What  is  lamen- 
table is,  that  since  the  two  are  equally  necessary  to  civ- 
ilization, there  should  be  any  jealousy  between  them, 


xiv  Preface  to  the  American  Edition. 

or  contempt  one  of  the  other.  I  have  a  friend  who  is 
a  great  manufacturer,  and  he  wrongly  fancies  that  I 
rather  despise  him  because  he  has  not  had  time  to  get 
culture,  and  cannot  write  and  talk  elegantly  and  per- 
suasively. But  that  is  a  mistake  of  his.  I  respect  in 
him  a  strong  temporal  lordship,  wisely  administered, 
and  if  he  rather  despised  me  because  I  have  not  made 
a  fortune,  that  would  be  another  mistake,  because  the 
accumulation  of  material  values  is  his  business,  not 
mine ;  my  business  is  culture.  He  and  I,  that  is,  his 
class  and  my  class,  are  alike  indispensable,  and  instead 
of  undervaluing  and  being  jealous  of  each  other,  we 
should  do  well  to  live  in  mutual  consideration  and 
respect. 

I  cannot  let  slip  this  opportunity  for  thanking  Amer- 
ican critics  for  their  kind  reception  of  "A  Painter's 
Camp."  The  tone  of  their  reviews  was  universally  so 
generous,  so  entirely  free  from  any  disposition  to  un- 
necessary fault-finding,  that  I  feel  now,  in  sending  the 
sheets  of  this  volume  across  the  Atlantic,  a  confidence, 
I  do  not  say  in  its  success,  but  that  it  is  sure  to  have 
a  fair  chance.  I  am  under  the  impression  that  there 
exist  some  natural  sympathies  between  me  and  my 
American  readers,  of  a  kind  likely  to  make  the  relation 
between  us  easy  and  agreeable.  I  find  across  the  At- 
lantic a  livelier  disposition  to  receive  ideas  on  artistic 
subjects  than  I  find  in  France,  where  criticism  is  tra- 
ditional, and  although  in  England  pictures  are  liberally 
bought,  it  cannot  be  said  that  there  is  much  general 
interest  in  the  principles  of  art.  The  truth  is,  that  the 
English  get  all  the  criticism  they  care  for  in  the  peri- 
odicals, and  since  I  have  written  the  ait  criticisms  in 


Preface  to  the  American  Edition.  xv 

the  "  Saturday  Review,"  I  reach  my  home  public  in  the 
way  it  seems  to  like  best,  —  a  fragmentary  way,  in 
which  there  is  a  great  scattering  of  material,  which, 
however,  may  ultimately  be  moulded  into  more  per- 
manent forms. 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT   ART. 


THAT   CERTAIN  ARTISTS   SHOULD  WRITE  ON  ART. 


"pMERSON  has  said  somewhere  that  no  truths  are  so 
•*-•'  valuable  as  those  we  have  come  at  in  endeavoring  to 
satisfy  ourselves.  The  subject  of  the  present  chapter  has, 
of  course,  possessed  a  personal  interest  for  me,  and  its 
conclusions  have  cost  me  more  thought  and  care  than  are 
usually  bestowed  on  the  getting  up  of  a  subject  merely 
for  literary  treatment.  If  I  have  sufficient  confidence  in 
these  conclusions  to  act  upon  them,  it  ought  to  be  evident 
that,  whether  sound  or  not,  they  are  at  least  sincere. 

The  use  of  literature  cannot  merely  be  to  make  authors 
famous  and  publishers  rich.  The  important  service  it 
yields  to  mankind  is  the  perpetual  registering  of  the  ex- 
perience of  the  race.  Without  literature  it  is  inconceiv- 
able that  any  race  of  men  could  reach  a  degree  of  culture 
comparable  to  ours,  because,  without  a  literature  to  record 
it,  the  experience  of  dead  generations  could  never  be  fully 
available  for  the  living  one.  Oral  and  practical  tradition 
no  doubt  have  their  use,  as  we  see  to  this  day  in  many 
trades  and  professions  ;  but  this  tradition  is  in  our  time 
nearly  always  aided  by,  or  based  upon,  written  records. 
And  nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  our  age  than  its  con- 
stantly increasing  tendency  to  commit  every  thing  to  writ- 
ing. The  most  ordinary  professions  and  trades  have  their 
literatures,  —  trades  which  not  long  since  were  merely 

1 


2  That  certain  Artists  should  write  on  Art. 

traditional.  The  experience  of  the  race  is  now  regis- 
tered by  literature  in  all  its  departments.  Our  novelists 
paint  the  manners  of  their  time.  The  avowed  object  of 
Balzac  was  to  leave  on  record  a  speaking  portraiture  of 
French  life  in  his  time ;  and  though  he  died  before  his  plan 
was  fully  accomplished,  he  has  left  us,  in  the  "  Comedie 
Humaine,"  between  two  and  three  thousand  characters, 
every  one  of  which  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a  record 
of  real  life.  The  retrospective  habit  of  the  last  gener- 
ation, which  sought  only  to  revive  the  past,  has  given 
place  to  a  wiser  desire  to  register  the  present.  This  desire 
is  wiser,  not  because  the  present  is  of  necessity  the  best  of 
models,  but  because  it  is  the  only  one  we  can  study  from 
nature.  Some  critics  accuse  this  recent  tendency  of  a 
certain  narrowness,  as  if  it  were  from  choice  merely 
that  our  writers  register  what  they  see,  whereas  it  is 
from  an  ^creasing  desire  to  be  true,  which  of  course 
seeks  th^.e  subjects  that  alone  it  is  possible  for  us  to  paint 
truly. 

So  by  their  love  of  truth  our  novelists  are  driven  to 
register  the  manners  of  their  own  time.  How  precious 
:ekich  registers  will  be  in  a  thousand  years  !  Thackeray 
and  Balzac  will  make  it  possible  for  our  descendants  to 
live  over  again  in  the  England  and  France  of  to-day. 
Seen  in  this  light,  the  novelist  has  a  higher  office  than 
merely  to  amuse  his  contemporaries ;  he  hands  them  down 
all  living  and  talking  together  to  the  remotest  ages.  When 
the  new  Houses  of  Parliament  and  the  new  Louvre  shall 
be  as  antique  to  others  as  the  Colosseum  is  to  us,  they 
shall  know  what  manner  of  men  and  women  first  walked 
under  the  freshly  carved  arcades  of  the  new  palace  on  the 
banks  of  the  Seine,  and  saw  the  tall  towers  grow  year  after 
year  like  young  trees  at  Westminster. 

This  view  of  all  literature  as  a  register  of  human  ex- 
perience may  be  demurred  to  with  regard  to  some  of  its 
departments.  It  may  be  objected,  for  example,  that  our 
contemporary  poetry  is  no  record  of  our  experience.  But 
it  is  a  record  of  our  feelings,  and  these  are  a  part,  and  a 
very  important  part,  of  the  experience  of  all  cultivated 


That  certain  Artists  should  write  on  Art.          3 

persons.  A  poem,  which  has  been  greatly  popular  in  its 
own  time,  even  though  it  may  bear  no  very  obvious  rela- 
tion to  it,  must  nevertheless  have  been  in  close  unison  with 
much  contemporary  sentiment.  Yet  even  in  poetry  the 
tendency  to  the  registering  of  experience  indubitably 
strengthens.  Byron's  masterpiece,  "  Don  Juan,"  is  irot 
retrospective  at  all ;  even  in  "  Childe  Harold,"  the  re- 
trospection is  by  no  means  the  strongest  element ;  and 
the  affectation  of  the  antique,  which  mars  the  first  two 
cantos,  is  frankly  abandoned  in  the  third  and  fourth.  Mrs. 
Browning's  best  work,  "Aurora  Leigh,"  is  modern  to  the 
core.  Tennyson  certainly  goes  back  to  the  fables  of  King 
Arthur,  but  "  In  Memoriam,"  "  Maud,"  and  several  of  the 
best  of  his  minor  pieces,  are  as  modern  as  "  The  New- 
comes." 

I  mentioned  fiction  and  poetry  first  because  they  seemed 
the  weakest  point  of  my  argument;  but  when,.1  come  to 
periodical  literature  no  one  will  for  a  moment  u/^pute  that 
it  is  strictly  a  register  of  all  the  thoughts  and  acts  of 
humanity,  day  by  day,  week  by  week,  and  month  by 
month.  In  the  files  of  the  Times  our  descendants  will 
possess  a  full  and  detailed  record,  not  only  of  our  act;,, 
but  of  our  most  transient  opinions  and  hopes.  A  number 
of  the  Times  has  not  done  its  work  when  you  or  I  have 
read  it.  Other  eyes  will  read  it  after  a  thousand  years 
with  all  the  advantages  of  that  immense  experience  behind 
them !  They  will  see  us  timidly  delaying,  or  earnestly 
advocating,  changes  whose  vast  results  shall  to  them  be 
matter  of  history. 

Such  history  as  that  of  Macaulay  and  Motley  is  a  reg- 
ister of  the  retrospective  kind.  It  is  like  the  early  chap- 
ters of  an  autobiography.  In  an  autobiography  we  have 
an  accurate  type  of  mankind's  ways  of  placing  itself  on 
record.  Such  records  or  memories  of  their  life  as  child- 
hood and  youth  preserve  to  maturity  are  afterwards  sifted, 
judged,  arranged,  and  re-written  by  the  grown  man  in  the 
full  light  of  his  experience.  Yet  the  past  is  continually 
slipping  away  from  us,  and,  though  we  keep  its  results,  we 
forget  its  circumstances.  So  all  that  we  call  history  is  no 


4  That  certain  Artists  should  write  on  Art. 

better  than  the  early  or  introductory  chapter  of  Humanity's 
autobiography.  Its  best  history  is  its  diary;  that  is, 
its  daily  newspapers.  For  histories,  though  they  may 
preserve  facts,  which  is  not  always  to  be  said  of  them, 
inevitably  lose  impressions,  whereas  journalists  write  down 
the  most  transient  impressions  of  the  intelligent  class  in 
their  time.  We  may  therefore  look  upon  the  Times 
newspaper  not  merely  as  a  register  of  facts,  but  a  record 
of  thoughts. 

The  technical  literature  which  has  taken  such  a  vast 
development  of  late  is,  however,  the  strongest  basis  of  the 
argument  I  wish  to  enforce.  The  immense  quantity  of  books 
published  within  the  last  twenty  years  for  the  especial  use 
of  particular  trades  and  professions  is  one  of  the  best 
results  of  the  increase  of  population,  and  the  consequent 
increase  of  professional  readers.  It  is,  perhaps,  in  law 
and  medicine  that  this  development  is  most  remarkable ; 
but  it  extends  to  all  trades,  for  almost  every  mechanic  can 
read,  and  cheap  technical  literature  is  brought  within  the 
reach  of  all  purses.  Mr.  Weale,  of  Holborn,  has  pub- 
lished a  very  valuable  series  of  cheap  technical  works  at  a 
shilling  a  volume.  M.  Roret,  of  Paris,  has  issued  an  im- 
mense encyclopedia,  including  every  conceivable  trade 
from  common  blacksmith's  work  up  to  religious  archi- 
tecture. 

In  reviewing  all  these  technical  works  the  first  fact 
that  strikes  one  with  regard  to  their  authors  is,  that  they 
are  none  of  them  what  we  call  literary  men.  They  are 
not  men  who  live  by  literature  as  a  profession  ;  they  live 
by  other  trades  or  professions,  and  resort  to  literature  only 
as  a  means  of  communicating  to  others  their  professional 
observations. 

It  therefore  appears  that  literature  is  not  an  exclusive 
profession,  but  a  common  magazine  to  which  intelligent 
men  of  all  classes,  and  of  every  occupation,  contribute  the 
results  of  their  particular  experience.  This  is  the  point 
which  I  desire  the  reader  to  concede.  If  he  maintains, 
as  some  literary  men  do,  that  literature  is  a  profession 
which  no  one  can  enter  without  an  exclusively  literary 


That  certain  Artists  should  write  on  Art.          5 

training,  if  he  believes  that  no  one  ought  to  write  who 
does  any  thing  else,  it  will  be  necessary  for  me  to  argue 
my  point  more  elaborately. 

There  is  no  proof  that  literature  is  an  exclusive  profes- 
sion ;  if  it  is  one,  it  presents  the  singular  peculiarity  that 
its  professors  are  often  surpassed  by  mere  amateurs.  It  is 
not  at  all  on  the  same  footing  with  painting  in  this  respect. 
The  art  of  pictorial  expression  is  quite  technical,  and  pecu- 
liar to  a  certain  limited  class  of  students  ;  the  art  of  verbal 
expression  is  common  to  all  men  who  can  talk,  and  the 
art  of  literary  expression  to  all  who  can  write  a  letter.  It 
is  amazing  that  so  many  writers  will  not  see  a  distinction 
so  obvious,  and  yet  one  may  be  accused  of  the  incon- 
sistency of  condemning  practical  dilettantism  in  painting 
as  a  folly,  and  being  one's  self  a  practical  dilettante  in 
letters. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  of  the  great  writers  of 
the  world,  at  least  one-half  have  been  amateurs.  Chaucer 
and  Milton  were  ;  and  even  in  the  case  of  Shakespeare, 
though  his  plays  made  money,  his  authorship  was  secon- 
dary to  his  business  of  theatrical  manager.  Scott  and 
Talfourd  were  both  lawyers,  not  bred  especially  to  liter- 
ature ;  Kingsley  is  a  clergyman,  Ricardo  was  a  banker,  so 
is  Grote ;  and  John  Stuart  Mill  was  a  hard-working  ser- 
vant of  the  East  India  Company.  Sidney  Dobell  was  a 
wine-merchant,  and  followed  that  business  assiduously 
fifteen  years.  Samuel  Warren  is  an  industrious  lawyer, 
Mr.  Trollope  a  clerk  in  the  Civil  Service,  and  the  author 
of  **  Tom  Brown's  School-days  "  a  rising  barrister,  whom  I 
have  heard  solicitors  speak  highly  of  in  his  professional 
capacity.  These  are  names  which  occur  to  me  whilst 
writing  rapidly.  If  I  took  time  to  reflect,  I  should  find  a 
host  of  other  instances  of  amateurs  who  have  succeeded 
in  literature ;  but  this  is  quite  needless.  It  is  enough  to 
suggest  a  truth  so  obvious.  It  can  require  no  accumula- 
tion of  evidence  to  show,  what  all  men's  experience  proves, 
that  the  faculty  of  expressing  one's  self  well  in  written  lan- 
guage is  by  no  means  peculiar  to  those  who  earn  their 
living  by  it.  The  contributors  to  our  best  reviews  are  not 


fV>   07  TH*"*^ 

THf  IVBfi.SI'FV 


6  That  certain  Artists  should  write  on  Art. 

invariably  writers  by  profession,  and  their  editors  are  only 
too  happy  to  receive  good  articles  written  by  intelligent 
men  in  the  intervals  of  quite  different  avocations.  The 
last  phrase  reminds  me  of  a  book  called  "  Essays  written 
in  the  Intervals  of  Business,"  which  is  now  (1861)  in  its 
seventh  edition,  a  fact  which  of  itself  proves  that  a  man  of 
business  may  successfully  occupy  himself  with  literature. 

No  merely  literary  man  can,  as  such,  be  expected  to 
write  any  one  of  those  very  useful  and  even  necessary 
books  which  treat  of  subjects  that  require  great  special 
experience.  Literary  men  never  do  write  such  books 
unless  prepared  for  them,  as  Lewes  was  for  his  "  Essays 
on  Physiology,"  by  a  distinct  professional  education,  quite 
apart  from  purely  literary  culture.  If  by  accident  a  man 
who  has  been  intended  by  his  parents  for  a  lawyer,  and 
educated  for  the  law,  and  who  has  practised  for  some 
years  as  a  lawyer,  afterwards  abandons  the  law  for  general 
literature,  he  may  nevertheless  compose  a  legal  treatise ; 
but  a  magazine  writer  by  profession,  who  had  never  re- 
ceived any  legal  education,  could  not. 

There  is  no  subject  in  the  world  of  which  the  'mere 
writer-of-all-work  is  less  competent  to  treat  than  art.  It  is 
eminently  a  subject  requiring  practical  experience  and 
especial  study.  It  cannot  be  grasped  in  its  large  relations 
by  minds  habitually  occupied  with  other  matters,  and 
whose  only  claim  to  treat  of  it  is  their  faculty  of  verbal 
expression.  It  demands  great  personal  devotion,  and  un- 
tiring enthusiasm.  It  requires  also  much  technical  knowl- 
edge. The  devotion  and  the  enthusiasm  are  occasionally 
found  in  men  who  are  not  practically  artists,  the  technical 
experience  never. 

This  is  the  reason  why  our  art  criticism  is  for  the  most 
part  so  unprofitable.  Even  the  best  of  it  generally  deals 
with  works  of  art  in  their  intellectual  aspect  only,  with  a 
slight  admixture  of  technical  jargon,  but  no  intelligent 
reference  to  the  facts  of  nature. 

I  do  not,  however,  argue  that  artists  should  write  criti- 
cism. It  may  be  undesirable  that  painters  should  spend 
any  of  their  time  or  energy  in  what  would  in  their  case  be 


That  certain  Artists  should  write  on  Art.  1 

too  likely  to  degenerate  into  personal  recrimination.  It  is 
true  that  literary  meu  attack  each  other's  works  from 
behind  the  shelter  of  the  anonymous,  and  a  few  of  the 
best  art  criticisms  are  contributed  to  the  periodicals  by 
artists.  But  this  is  not  a  desirable  direction  for  the  talents 
of  an  artist  who  writes.  His  especial  office  with  the  pen 
is  to  contribute  to  the  general  enlightenment  on  the  subject 
of  art  in  its  relation  to  nature,  in  ways  which  need  not 
involve  attacks  on  his  living  rivals. 

True  art  critics  will  belong  to  a  separate  class,  when  we 
shall  have  enough  of  them  to  be  called  a  class. 

They  ought  to  be  especially  educated  for  their  office  of 
criticism.  They  should  be  practically  acquainted  with  all 
the  ordinary  difficulties  of  art.  The  commonest  tricks  of 
the  studio  constantly  impose  on  persons  who  pretend  to 
judge  of  performance  in  art  without  practical  apprentice- 
ship. A  real  critic  can  scarcely  be  an  accomplished  artist, 
but  he  must  be  able  to  draw  delicately,  and  must  have  tried 
to  color,  or  he  will  never  know  what  color  means.  The 
most  recondite  secrets  of  method  must  all  be  as  familiar 
to  our  critic  as  his  alphabet.  He  must  have  drawn  from 
the  living  figure  and  dissected  the  dead.  If  he  presume  to 
criticise  landscape,  he  must  have  lived  amongst  the  noblest 
natural  landscapes,  and  there  filled  his  note-books  with 
thousands  of  memoranda.  After  long  discipline  in  the 
life-school,  on  the  mountains,  in  the  forest,  by  the  shores  of 
the  great  lakes  and  the  sea,  out  on  the  storm-waves,  and 
lastly  in  all  the  best  galleries  of  Europe,  his  opinions  con- 
cerning painting  may  come  to  be  worth  listening  to,  but 
not  otherwise. 

Critics  of  this  order  ought  of  course  to  be  able  to  ex- 
press themselves  well  in  written  language,  but  they  would 
not  criticise  because  they  were  able  to  write,  as  so  many  do 
now,  but,  on  the  contrary,  write  because  they  were  quali- 
fied to  criticise,  which  is  a  different  thing. 

Our  common  critics  at  present  have  little  to  say,  but  they 
say  it  cleverly. 

And  our  painters  have  often  much  to  say,  but  they  can- 
not say  it  at  all,  or,  at  the  best,  clumsily. 


8  That  certain  Artists  should  write  on  Art. 

I  was  present  on  one  occasion  when  a  distinguished 
painter  was  asked  by  a  young  author  how  it  happened  that 
artists  so  rarely  wrote  upon  their  own  art.  "  Because," 
said  the  painter,  "  they  are  so  generally  deficient  in  the 
first  rudiments  of  a  literary  education."  I  believe  that 
answer,  however  unfavorable  to  artists,  to  have  been  much 
nearer  to  the  truth  than  the  common  theory  that  there  is 
something  essentially  incompatible  between  the  literary  and 
artistic  intellects.  Certainly  Ary  Scheffer  recognized  no 
such  incompatibility  when  he  said,  that  "  pour  etre  artiste, 
il  faut  avoir  en  soi  un  sentiment  eleve,  ou  une  conviction 
puissante,  digne  d'etre  exprime  par  une  langue  qui  peut 
etre  indifferemment  la  prose,  la  poesie,  la  musique,  la  sculp- 
ture, ou  la  peinture."  But  writing  is  always  extremely 
irksome  and  disagreeable  to  uneducated  people.  If  the 
reader  had  seen  certain  letters  by  successful  painters,  he 
would  not  wonder  at  their  feeling  uneasy  with  a  pen.  It  is 
on  record  that  a  famous  artist  wrote  academy  accademy. 
Another  excellent  artist,  who  has  achieved  success  in  the 
exhibitions  of  that  society,  wrote  several  letters,  in  all  of 
which  the  word  "  exhibition  "  was  spelt  without  the  h.  So 
here  are  two  first-rate  painters  who  could  not  either  of 
them  spell  loth  the  two  words  "  academy "  "  exhibition," 
the  two  words  in  the  whole  language  must  familiar  to  the 
artist  in  his  professional  capacity.  Here  is  a  charming 
extract  from  a  letter  from  ajeading  member  of  another 
great  artistic  corporation  :  "  My  out-door  studdy  begins  in 
Aprill.  Last  year  I  took  Holand  and  Bettgeum.  I  comence 
as  usual,  but  next  year's  rout  I  have  not  decided  on,  though 
I  have  a  strong  inclination  to  visset  Switzerland  again." 
Turner,  of  course,  spelt  badly  too  ;  but  Mr.  Kuskin  has  had 
the  ingenuity  to  discover  a  sort  of  merit,  such  as  it  is,  in 
Turner's  bad  spelling,  which  I  am  sure  we  are  all  very 
much  obliged  to  him  for  pointing  out  to  us.  "  All  his  mis- 
takes in  spelling,"  says  his  great  admirer,  "  are  economical. 
Many  bad  spellers  waste  their  letters;  but  Turner,  never. 
'  Engin  '  for  '  engine  ; '  '  Aust '  for  *  Aoste,'  or  *  Aouste ; ' 
'sumit'  for  'summit,'  or  'sommite;'  *  Iser '  for  'Isere;' 
'  le  Alps  '  for  '  les  Alpes,'  &c." 


That  certain  Artists  should  write  on  Art.          9 

Persons  to  whom  the  mere  act  of  writing  is  the  most 
arduous  of  all  exertion  are  not  likely  to  spend  more  time 
upon  it  than  they  are  absolutely  compelled  so  to  spend. 
This  simple  consideration  is  sufficient  to  account  for  the 
fact  that  artists,  in  general,  are  not  communicative  by 
means  of  the  pen.  If  they  were  all  taught  to  read  and 
write  before  they  began  to  paint,  as  clergymen  and  lawyers 
are  before  they  begin  to  preach  and  to  practise,  artist 
writers  would,  probably,  bear  as  great  a  proportion  to  the 
numbers  employed  inttheir  art  as  legal  and  clerical  authors 
to  the  other  members  of  their  professions.  And  if  painters 
were  so  taught  to  read  arid  write,  perhaps  they  would  not 
paint  any  worse  for  it.  It  does  not  follow  that  Turner 
would  have  painted  less  skilfully  if  he  had  had  such  a 
degree  of  education  as  every  schoolboy  of  twelve  years  old 
ought  to  possess.  If  he  had  been  able  to  write  good 
English,  and  even  spell  such  French  words  as  he  required 
as  titles  to  his  drawings,  he  might,  nevertheless,  in  spite  of 
these  attainments,  have  reached  his  present  rank  as  a 
landscape  painter. 

Those  who  think  that  a  great  artist  should  shut  himself 
up  in  mystery  and  solitude,  like  the  Grand  Lama,  will  say 
that  it  is  beneath  his  dignity  to  communicate  any  thought 
to  the  world,  except  such  as  it  may  discover  in  his  can- 
vases. But  the  sort  of  dignity  which  is  only  to  be  kept 
up  by  holding  aloof  from  men  is  scarcely  worth  keeping 
up  at  all.  One  consequence  of  this  reticence  on  the  part 
of  artists  is,  that  the  true  art  of  coloring  is  almost  lost  to 
us,  and  that  whilst  we  have  a  hundred  volumes  by  connois- 
seurs concerning  an  art  they  knew  nothing  about,  we  have 
scarcely  a  line  of  record  from  any  truly  great  artist,  giv- 
ing an  intelligible  account  of  his  technical  methods  and 
observations. 

In  the  case  of  artists  who  can  write  and  don't,  there  may 
be  two  reasons  for  their  silence.  The  first  is,  that  when  a 
successful  painter  lays  down  the  brush  to  take  up  a  pen,  he 
is  sacrificing,  for  each  hour  that  he  writes,  a  certain  calcu- 
lable sum  of  money  ;  another  reason  is  a  strong  conviction, 
common  to  most  artists,  that  if  they  were  to  say  any  thing 


10         That  certain,  Artists  should  write  on  Art. 

about  their  art  it  would  be  of  no  use,  because  the  public 
could  not  understand  it. 

This  feeling  has  hitherto  been  well  founded,  but  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  a  certain  portion  of  the  public  is  ad- 
vancing towards  such  a  knowledge  of  art  as  will  shortly 
enable  it  to  receive  the  teaching  even  of  artists  them- 
selves. The  consequence  of  this,  and  its  inevitable  result 
in  creating  a  demand  for  a  kind  of  literature  relating  to 
the  fine  arts,  will  be,  that  unless  artists  are  themselves 
prepared  to  supply  such  a  literature,  they  will  be  sup- 
planted by  dilettantes,  who  will  thus  acquire  an  influence 
over  public  opinion  on  matters  connected  with  art  to  which 
they  have  no  natural  right.  On  the  other  hand,  the  public 
itself  must  be  retarded  in  its  art  culture  by  the  dissemina- 
tion of  crude  and  imperfect  theories.  And  since  it  has 
not  time  to  investigate  such  matters  for  itself,  and  must 
always  take  them  on  trust  from  some  one  in  temporary 
authority,  society  will,  of  course,  set  up  its  favorite  writers 
as  rulers,  against  whose  verdict  there  will  be  no  appeal. 
It  appears  therefore  desirable  that  a  few  artists  in  each 
generation  should  themselves  contribute  to  the  literature 
of  art,  in  order  to  maintain  the  influence  which  their 
knowledge  entitles  them  to.  For  as  the  priesthood  in 
every  religion  takes  into  its  own  hands  the  production  of 
a  theological  literature  based  on  its  especial  tenets,  so,  it 
appears,  ought  painters  to  lead  the  literature  of  their  own 
art,  though  I  would  not  discourage  intelligent  amateurs 
from  freely  contributing  to  it. 

It  is  said  that  pictures  ought  to  speak  for  themselves. 
But  universal  experience  proves  that  pictures  only  speak 
to  persons  already  advanced  in  art  culture,  just  as  books 
can  only  reach  people  who  have  learned  to  read.  Books 
on  art  are  a  concession  to  the  general  incapacity  to  see.  If 
people  could  see,  artists  could  teach  them  directly,  with- 
out the  intervention  of  literary  interpreters.  But  most 
people  find  it  easier  to  read  books  about  art  than  to 
read  the  art  itself.  They  require  to  be  told  to  look  before 
they  will  look,  and  they  require  also  to  be  told  what  to 
look  for.  It  is  owing  to  this  incapacity  for  seeing  without 


That  certain  Artists  should  write  on  Art.         11 

being  told,  that  art  itself,  and  the  literature  which  concerns 
itself  with  natural  aspects,  are  necessary  to  men,  else,  I 
suppose,  they  could  enjoy  nature  without  the  intervention 
of  painters  and  writers.  At  present  we  enjoy  nature 
much  in  this  fashiou.  Mr.  Turner  perceives  that  mist  is 
beautiful,  and  paints  it.  But  nobody  understands  the  mist 
in  the  picture,  because  it  looks  so  odd  and  indistinct. 
Then  comes  Mr.  Ruskin  to  tell  the  folks,  this  time  in  plain 
English,  not  in  paint,  and  in  a  fine  large  legible  type,  that 
Turner  meant  to  painj  mist,  because  mist  in  nature  was  to 
him  something  charming  and  delightful.  After  all  this  has 
been  stated  in  print,  we  go  to  the  Turner  Gallery,  and 
perceive  that  it  is  indeed  mist  that  Turner  meant ;  then  we 
go  to  look  at  natural  mist  to  see  whether  the  Turnerian 
account  of  it  is  true. 

Thus  there  is  always  some  critic  or  connoisseur  between 
the  painter  and  the  public,  whose  office  it  is  to  persuade 
the  public  to  look  at  the  painter's  work,  and  the  painter  in 
his  turn  has  to  get  the  spectator  to  look  at  nature,  if  he 
can.  Writers  on  nature  and  art  are  clever  oculists,  for 
they  give  sight  to  the  blind.  But  all  such  'writing  is  a 
condescension  to  that  blindness.  All  the  principles  of 
architecture  that  Ruskin  has  ever  stated  are  contained  and 
exemplified  in  half  a  dozen  ruinous  old  buildings ;  but 
very  few  people  saw  them  in  the  buildings  till  they  read 
about  them  in  the  books.  So  all  the  principles  of  paint- 
ing that  he  has  illustrated  and  enforced,  and  a  thousand 
others  that  no  words  can  ever  express,  are  fully  contained 
and  splendidly  exemplified  in  the  works  of  five  or  six 
great  artists.  But  in  order  to  see  them  in  the  pictures  it 
was  necessary  first  to  read  about  them  in  the  book.  The 
crumbling  stone  and  mouldering  canvas  gave  their  lessons 
unheeded  to  thankless  and  careless  children,  but  the  atten- 
tion of  these  children  was  at  once  arrested  by  brilliant  lan- 
guage that  they  could  easily  understand,  and  fresh-looking, 
well-printed  pages,  that  it  was  a  pleasure  to  read. 

Pictures  to  be  understood  by  the  great  public  always 
require  a  commentary,  and  the  best  commentators  would 
often  be  the  painters  themselves,  if  they  would  condescend 


12         That  certain  Artists  should  write  on  Art. 

to  explanation.  A  great  service  would  be  rendered  by 
certain  artists  to  the  public  if  they  accompanied  their 
most  original  works  with  a  printed  note,  kindly  explaining 
every  thing  that  the  ordinary  spectator  could  not  be  ex- 
pected to  understand,  and  gently  guiding  his  attention  to 
such  natural  phenomena  as  had  been  translated  on  the 
canvas.  Such  friendly  condescension  would  do  more  to 
advance  a  right  understanding  of  art  than  endless  literary 
criticism  of  it.  For  a  careful  painter  must  necessarily 
have  looked  at  nature,  which  cannot  with  equal  certainty 
be  predicted  of  a  clever  critic  ;  and  a  painter  must,  at 
least,  have  seen  a  picture  he  has  himself  painted,  whereas 
a  critic  will  often  put  together  a  few  clever  phrases  about 
a  work  he  has  never  really  taken  the  trouble  to  look  into. 
If  we  had  a  complete  catalogue  of  all  Turner's  works, 
carefully  annotated  by  himself,  with  details  of  the  circum- 
stances under  which  every  impression  was  received  and 
recorded,  how  interesting  and  precious  it  would  be  !  The 
only  notes  at  all  like  this,  left  by  any  great  artist,  are,  I 
imagine,  those  brief  ones  by  Reynolds  on  the  materials 
employed  in  his  portraits.  Such  notes  ought,  of  course,  to 
include  processes  and  materials,  giving  a  faithful  account 
of  the  technical  history  of  the  work;  but  this  is  not 
enough,  the  intellectual  history  of  it  should  be  recorded 
too  ;  and  in  the  case  of  landscapes  every  thing  interesting 
in  the  locality  should  be  pointed  out,  all  changes  in  the 
topography  of  the  place  for  the  sake  of  composition  being 
frankly  confessed. 

In  this  way  the  registering  function  of  the  pen  would  be 
very  usefully  exercised,  but  I  would  not  have  the  literary 
work  of  all  artists  limited  to  this.  Those  who  have  a 
natural  capacity  for  literary  expression  ought  to  record,  in 
the  form  of  essays  and  treatises,  or,  if  professors  in  any 
academy,  in  the  form  of  lectures,  their  views  on  those 
great  questions  of  art  which  are  yet  subject  to  dispute, 
and  also  their  sincere  opinions  on  deceased  artists.  It 
would  be  extremely  interesting,  for  example,  and  very 
instructive,  to  know  what  Turner  really  thought  of 
Claude,  as  we  should  know  it  if  he  had  written  a  treatise 


That  certain  Artists  should  write  on  Art.        13 

on  Claude.  The  fact  that  Velasquez  liked  Titian,  and  did 
not  like  Raphael,  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  things 
which  have  descended  to  us  concerning  him.  And  though 
the  discourses  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  are  full  of  fallacies, 
no  one  who  loves  art  would  consent  that  they  should  be 
lost,  because,  whether  erroneous  or  not,  they  are  a  true 
record  of  his  opinions,  and  all  that  he  thought  is  interest- 
ing to  us. 

One  of  the  best  examples  of  a  kind  of  art  literature, 
which  falls  naturally  within  the  province  of  the  professional 
artist,  is  Sir  Charles  Eastlake's  "  Materials  for  a  History 
of  Oil  Painting."  The  great  learning  and  research  which 
he  has  devoted  to  the  elucidation  of  technical  details  of  the 
most  useful  kind  peculiarly  entitle  him  to  the  gratitude  of 
artists. 

The  biography  of  artists  is  the  department  of  literature 
in  which  painters  have  hitherto  chiefly  distinguished  them- 
selves. The  biographer  of  a  painter  has  frequent  opportuni- 
ties of  conveying  opinions  on  art  and  on  matters  connected 
with  art,  without  that  directness  which  makes  the  writer  of 
essays  so  peculiarly  responsible.  Vasari's  lives,  though 
not  written  with  that  vivid  reality  which  our  most  recent 
school  of  history  aims  at,  are  nevertheless  a  durable 
monument  raised  by  one  artist  to  his  brethren  and  ances- 
tors in  art. 

I  have  said  that  the  reserve  of  artists  who  are  able  to 
write  and  do  not  is,  in  part,  due  to  their  impression  that 
the  public  is  too  ignorant  to  understand  them,  —  too  igno- 
rant, that  is,  to  understand  the  said  artists  as  the  artists 
would  express  themselves.  There  is,  however,  another 
side  to  this  question.  People  who  are  not  understood  may 
be  so  from  two  causes,  either  the  want  of  intelligence  in 
others,  or  the  want  of  expressional  art  in  themselves. 
This  last  want  often  makes  them  irritable  and  discourteous 
when  their  opinion  is  asked  for  by  persons  whom  they 
consider  incapable  of  comprehending  it  if  given.  I  have 
seen  artists  who,  when  asked  what  were  the  best  technical 
processes  in  use  at  the  present  day,  would  become  im- 
patient, as  if  there  were  something  really  absurd  in  the 


14         That  certain  Artists  should  write  on  Art. 

question,  whereas  it  is  a  pre-eminently  rational  question, 
and  one  which  admits  of  a  ready,  though  not  a  brief  reply. 
This  comes  of  their  want  of  literary  practice,  and  their 
consequent  difficulty  in  expression.  There  is  a  passage  in 
Emerson's  Essay  on  Plato  very  much  to  the  point. 
"  Children  cry,  scream,  and  stamp  with  fury,  unable  to 
express  their  desires.  As  soon  as  they  can  speak,  and  tell 
their  want,  and  the  reason  of  it,  they  become  gentle.  In 
adult  life,  whilst  the  perceptions  are  obtuse,  men  and 
women  talk  vehemently  and  superlatively,  blunder  and 
quarrel:  their  manners  are  full  of  desperation,  their 
speech  is  full  of  oaths.  As  soon  as  with  culture  things 
have  cleared  up  a  little,  and  they  see  them  no  longer  in 
lumps  and  masses,  but  accurately  distributed,  they  desist 
from  that  weak  vehemence  and  explain  their  meaning  in 
detail.  If  the  tongue  had  not  been  framed  for  articulation, 
man  would  still  be  a  beast  in  the  forest.  The  same  weak- 
ness and  want,  on  a  higher  plane,  occur  daily  in  the  edu- 
cation of  ardent  young  men  and  women.  '  Ah  !  you  don't 
understand  me  ;  I  have  never  met  with  any  one  who  com- 
prehends me ; '  and  they  sigh  and  weep,  write  verses  and 
walk  alone,  —  fault  of  power  to  express  their  precise  mean- 
ing. In  a  month  or  two,  through  the  favor  of  their  good 
genius,  they  meet  some  one  so  related  as  to  assist  their 
volcanic  estate ;  and  good  communication  being  once  es- 
tablished they  are  thenceforward  good  citizens." 

If  it  needs  culture  to  receive,  it  also  needs  culture  to 
communicate  ideas  by  words.  When  artists  know  some- 
thing about  art  they  usually  say  that  it  is  incommunicable, 
which,  in  most  cases,  only  means  that  the  man  himself 
does  not  know  how  to  explain  it.  Ignorant  artists  cannot 
even  teach  pupils  except  by  example,  which,  whatever  may 
be  said  of  it  in  morals,  needs,  in  art,  to  be  accompanied  by 
a  great  deal  of  intelligent  commentary  and  precept  if  it  is 
to  be  of  any  great  use  to  the  learner.  But  the  ordinary 
artist  can  only  do  ;  he  cannot  explain  how  it  is  done,  even 
with  all  the  advantages  of  direct  personal  communication, 
much  less  in  a  book. 

No  one  will  be  astonished  at  this  who  has  ever  had 


That  certain  Artists  should  write  on  Art.        15 

occasion  to  seek  information  from  illiterate  people  on 
subjects  they  practically  understand.  A  marine  engineer 
of  great  experience  told  me  that  the  ordinary  workmen 
in  his  business  know  nothing  whatever  of  the  principles 
which  govern  their  own  work,  and  could  not  explain  the 
very  things  they  themselves  make  without  falling  into 
endless  blunders.  Many  a  homely  illustration  of  the  same 
truth  may  be  found  in  the  details  of  a  farm.  Illiterate 
farmers  not  only  will  not,  but  really  cannot,  explain  their 
most  habitual  operations,  because  to  explain  any  thing 
rightly  requires  long  practice  in  Intellectual  analysis,  and 
a  command  of  words.  The  author  of  a  popular  little 
book,  "  Our  Farm  of  Four  Acres,"  found  that  it  was  use- 
less to  consult  farmers'  wives  on  the  important  subject 
of  butter-making.  I  believe  that  it  is  generally  equally 
useless  to  consult  artists  on  the  subject  of  picture-making, 
and  for  the  same  reason.  But  when  intelligent  ladies  take 
to  farming,  as  Madame  Millet-Robinet  has  done,  it  is 
astonishing  how  many  things  they  find  means  to  explain, 
and  how  lucidly  they  explain  them.  It  also  seems  prob- 
able that  when  intelligent  and  cultivated  gentlemen,  like 
Sir  Charles  Eastlake  and  Mr.  Leslie,  are  no  longer  rare  in 
the  artist  class,  artists  will  more  frequently  write  on  art. 


16     .  Painting  from  Nature. 

II. 

PAINTING   FROM    NATURE. 

P^HE  practice  of  painting  from  nature,  in  the  modern 
A  sense,  is  of  very  recent  adoption.  It  is  probable 
v  that  before  our  own  time' no  landscape  painter  ever  began 
and  finished  an  oil  picture  out  of  doors  and  from  nature 
itself.  Figure  painters  painted  from  nature,  and  landscape 
painters  made  studies  from  nature,  with  more  or  less  accu- 
racy and  resolution  ;  but  no  one  seriously  thought  of  finish- 
ing any  thing  but  mere  sketches  or  studies  out  of  doors. 
The  art  of  landscape  painting  was  essentially  practised  in 
the  studio ;  its  materials  were  gathered  in  the  fields,  like 
the  raw  material  of  human  food,  but  cooked  in  the  artistic 
kitchen  before  being  served  up  for  the  appreciation  of  the 
connoisseur.  At  the  present  day,  however,  many  painters 
—  especially  our  younger  ones  —  are  devoting  immense 
labor  to  the  finishing  of  pictures  out  of  doors  ;  a  costly 
and  inconvenient  proceeding,  and  one  which  ought  to 
reward  its  votaries  very  richly  for  all  the  trouble  and 
fatigue  it  inevitably  entails. 

I  propose  in  the  present  chapter  to  analyze  the  art  of 
painting  from  nature,  to  point  out  the  various  ways  in 
which  it  may  be  pursued,  to  examine  one  by  one  all  the 
principal  difficulties  against  which  painters  who  work 
directly  from  nature  have  continually  to  contend,  and 
lastly  to  suggest  certain  plans  and  contrivances  by  which 
a  few  of  the  most  irritating  of  them  may  be  combated  and 
overcome. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that,  in  taking  their  canvases 
out  of  doors,  all  painters  propose  to  themselves  the  same 
object.  A  certain  limitation  is  always,  whether  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  imposed  on  himself  by  every 
artist  in  his  imitation  of  nature.  If  no  such  limitation 


Painting  from  Nature.  17 

were  resolved  upon  by  the  artist,  no  picture  would  ever  be 
finished,  and  no  artist  would  ever  have  done  with  any  one 
of  his  works.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  no  such  limitation 
were  accepted  by  the  public,  no  human  labor  could  ever 
satisfy  it.  But  it  so  happens,  that,  so  far  from  being 
unpopular,  a  strict  limitation  of  the  imitative  art  is  quite 
joyfully  understood  and  admitted  by  everybody  ;  sketches 
being  generally  quite  as  much  liked  in  their  way  as  finished 
pictm-es;  and  pictures  which  are  little  more  than  sketches 
in  oil,  as,  for  instance,  those  of  Decamps,  being  often  eagerly 
purchased  by  collectors.  Every  artist,  therefore,  has  his 
point  of  limitation,  his  finishing  point,  and  he  has  also  his 
point  of  imitation,  beyond  which  he  does  not  think  fit  to  fol- 
low nature.  Even  the  severest  pre-Raphaelite  must  make 
up  his  mind  to  stop  somewhere  in  his  copyism  of  natural 
objects,  —  if  he  could  not  submit  to  this,  he  would  have 
to  abandon  the  art  altogether,  for  the  pursuit  of  it  with 
unbridled  instincts  of  imitation  would  be  altogether  intol- 
erable, and  enough  to  drive  any  man  mad.  These  two 
limitations  of  finish  and  of  imitation  are,  however,  very 
different  things.  A  painter  may  finish  minutely  without 
imitating  minutely ;  but  he  cannot  imitate  minutely  with- 
out finishing  minutely.  In  working  from  nature,  all  the 
limitations  that  the  painter  has  accepted  hem  him  in  and 
determine  the  character  of  his  work.  Those  limitations 
are  of  all  kinds,  —  they  may  be  purely  conventional,  as, 
for  instance,  the  classicism  of  Sir  George  Beaumont ;  they 
may  be  fixed  by  the  practice  of  some  former  master  whom 
the  artist  looks  up  to  as  an  authority  that  it  would  be  pre- 
sumptuous to  surpass  ;  they  may  be  settled  for  the  painter 
by  the  narrowness  of  his  own  sympathies  and  the  dulness 
of  his  own  sight,  and  so  be  the  most  impassable  of  all 
prison  boundaries,  —  those  of  a  man's  own  nature. 
Lastly,  they  may  be  wise  and  necessary  limitations,  im- 
posed upon  himself  consciously,  severely,  and  sorrowfully, 
by  a  great  man  who  thoroughly  loves  Nature,  and  longs  to 
follow  her  wherever  she  would  lead  him,  but  who  restrains 
himself  at  a  certain  definite  point,  knowing  that  human 
weakness  can  go  no  farther  without  failure. 

2 


18  Painting  from  Nature. 

In  order  to  place  more  vividly  before  the  reader  the 
manner  in  which  these  limitations  operate,  I  will  show 
how  several  different  classes  of  painters  work  from  nature, 
and  afterwards  explain  what,  in  my  own  conception,  is  the 
wisest  way  of  working  from  nature. 

THE    CLASSICAL    SCHOOL. 

These  painters  do,  indeed,  work  from  nature,  but  they 
adapt  all  they  find  to  preconceived  ideas  in  their  own 
minds,  formed  from  famous  pictures  in  the  galleries.  They 
are  painting  from  nature  in  quite  a  peculiar  sense.  Claude 
and  Poussin  stand  between  them  and  every  thing  they  see. 
When  they  see  any  thing  in  nature  that  is  like  Claude, 
they  think  it  good  for  art,  and  introduce  it ;  first  carefully 
altering  it  in  a  Claudesque  manner.  When  they  find  things 
not  to  be  found  in  Claude  or  Poussin,  a  circumstance  that 
must  very  frequently  occur  to  them,  they  reject  them  with- 
out hesitation,  as  unfitted  for  artistic  purposes.  I  have 
actually  heard  of  two  foreign  artists  of  this  kind,  one  of 
whom,  when  travelling  in  the  Highlands^  on  seeing  a  mag- 
nificent effect  at  Loch  Awe,  rather  contemptuously  ob- 
served to  the  other  that  "  the  effect  was  false"  though  in 
nature  itself,  his  standard  of  truth  being  not  nature,  but 
Claude.*  All  classical  students  approach  nature  in  this 
spirit.  They  do  not  go  to  her  to  be  taught,  but  to  impose 
their  own  rules  on  all  they  take ;  consequently  they  learn 
nothing.  Once  benumb  the  human  soul  with  the  fatal 
mesmerism  of  too  much  reverence  for  some  dead  man's 
name,  and  you  can  render  it  for  ever  blind  to  the  plainest 
facts  in  the  world  it  lives  in.  All  classical  art-students 
have  accepted  the  principle  that  the  perfection  of  land- 
scape art  was  attained  two  hundred  years  ago  by  the 
classical  landscape  painters,  and  during  all  their  lives  will 

*  Suppose  this  painter  had  seen  a  true  picture  of  the  effect  which  he 
called  false  in  nature,  would  he  not  have  called  it  false  also  in  art  ? 

Yes ;  and  there  is  another  thing  to  be  said. 

Other  people,  who  would  not  have  dared  to  call  the  effect  false  in  nature, 
would  have  called  it  false  in  art,  though  truly  painted;  and  they  do  so 
constantly. 


Painting  from  Nature.  19 

see  nothing  except  through  the  Poussin  spectacles.  For 
them  nature  only  exists  as  a  mine  of  possible  Claudes  and 
Poussins,  and  where  they  do  not  see  Claude  or  Poussin, 
they  see  nothing.  Their  real  aim  is  to  imitate  these  two 
masters;  but  they  disdainfully  accept  from  nature  — 
which  they  really  despise  —  the  raw  material  for  their 
performances.  And  Nature,  who  yields  nothing  that  we 
do  not  toil  for,  only  yields  them  faint  shadows  of  gallery 
compositions.*  Not  one  of  all  her  precious  truths  will  she 
let  them  have.  They  believe  in  the  classical  landscape 
painters,  and  Nature  lets  them  paint  classical  landscape. 
Let  them  cry  to  their  own  gods,  for  the  God  of  Nature 
will  grant  them  nothing.! 

THE    IMAGINATIVE    MODERN    SCHOOL. 

They  are  too  original  and  have  too  much  natural  ability 
to  allow  of  their  patiently  Poussinizing  nature  ;  but  they 
are,  at  the  same  time,  too  independent  and  self-reliant  to 
imitate  her.  They  paint  from  imagination  in  the  presence 
of  nature,  using  nature  merely  for  the  first  suggestion  of 
the  idea,  and  in  the  subsequent  progress  of  the  work  as 
an  authority  on  scientific  facts  of  form,  color,  geology, 
botany,  meteorology,  &c.,  &c. 

In  works  produced  on  this  principle  there  is  no  pretence 
to  imitation,  although  the  painter  may  begin  and  finish  his 
picture  out  of  doors,  and  although,  when  finished,  the  work 
may  seem  imitative. 

As  painters  of  the  classical  school  are  prevented  from 
imitating  by  their  reverence  for  dead  artists,  so  these  can- 

*  There  is  an  invention  intended  for  the  especial  use  of  this  class  of 
students ;  a  small  black  mirror,  called  a  Claude  glass,  intended  to  blacken 
natural  color  to  the  hues  of  old  pictures  in  the  galleries,  which,  in  addi- 
tion to  their  own  inherent  want  of  color,  are  darkened  by  the  dirt  of 
centuries.  The  invention  answers  its  purpose  perfectly,  and  confirms  the 
wilful  purblindness  of  the  human  owls  who  use  it. 

t  Happily,  this  foolish  sort  of  study  is  all  but  extinct  in  England,  but 
it  flourishes  still  on  the  Continent  under  the  protection  of  figure  painters, 
who  always  rule  academies  and  schools  of  art,  and  who  have  a  natural 
instinct  to  repress  the  advance  of  landscape  by  lending  all  the  weight  of 
their  authority  to  the  shallow  landscape  painters  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. 


20  Painting  from  Nature. 

not  imitate  because  their  imagination  is  too  strong,  and 
they  must  obey  it.  They  love  nature  quite  sincerely  and 
exclusively,  caring  for  other  artists  only  so  far  as  they  lead 
them  to  nature.  Nevertheless,  they  cannot  imitate  nature, 
because,  in  them,  imagination  overrules  the  imitative  ten- 
dency. Artists  of  this  order,  when  the  imagination  is  not 
only  powerful  but  of  truly  inventive  quality  (an  imagina- 
tion may  be  powerful  that  is  not  in  the  artistic  sense  inven- 
tive), if  their  imagination  is  really  of  the  inventive  order, 
such  artists  would  do  quite  wrong  to  imitate,  for  loyalty  to 
the  laws  of  its  constitution  is  the  first  duty  of  genius. 
These  artists  use  natural  phenomena  exactly  as  a  novelist 
uses  the  people  he  meets  with ;  they  study  them,  and 
employ  them  as  they  think  fit.  But  as,  after  all,  they 
really  do  study  them,  and  not  scorn  them  like  the  classical 
landscape  painters,  they  have  their  reward,  and  learn  much, 
though  they  copy  little.  The  most  illustrious  example  of 
this  order  of  artists  is  Turner.  I  believe  he  never  really 
imitated  any  natural  object  in  his  whole  life.  In  the  early 
part  of  his  career,  being  subjected  to  the  prevailing  theo- 
ries, he  wore  the  Claude  and  Poussin  spectacles  for  a 
while,  but  soon  threw  them  aside  for  ever.  After  that  he 
looked  at  nature  earnestly,  learned  an  immense  number  of 
facts,  gathered  a  huge  encyclopaedia  of  observations,  but 
never  once  imitated  without  altering.  He  used  external 
nature  as  Scott  used  mankind.  Both  were  authors  of  fic- 
tion, yet  both  eminently  true  in  their  .work.  One  cannot 
quarrel  with  painters  and  writers  of  this  order  because 
they  give  the  full  rein  to  their  imagination ;  for  the 
imaginative  faculty  was  just  as  much  given  to  be  used 
as  the  imitative  faculty.  Nor  does  such  altering  as  theirs 
imply  the  slightest  want  of  reverence  for  nature.  They 
revere  nature  none  the  less  that  they  also  respect  the  laws 
of  their  own  nature. 

It  is  evident  that  working  out  of  doors  on  this  principle 
cannot  be  so  painfully  laborious  a  process  as  strict  imita- 
tion would  be.  It  is,  in  fact,  little  more  than  swift 
sketching  of  memoranda,  even  when  color  is  used.  And 
if  painters  of  this  order  ever  finish  from  nature  it  is 


Painting  from  Nature.  21 

merely  to  have  the  scientific  facts  right,  not  for  accuracy 
of  form  ;  so  that  they  do  not  copy  Nature,  they  merely 
refer  to  her  as  an  author  refers  to  the  books  in  his  library 
on  matters  of  fact  about  which  he  is  anxious  to  avoid 
error ;  but  this  is  a  very  different  thing  to  copying  the 
books  out,  word  for  word,  comma  for  comma. 

THE   ARTIFICIAL    OR   TECHNICAL    SCHOOL. 

They  do  not  yet  imitate  in  the  accurate  sense,  but  there 
is  something  bearing  a  distant  resemblance  to  imita- 
tion visible  in  the  outlines  of  their  principal  masses,  yet 
even  these  are  wilfully  arranged.  They  use  nature  for 
reference ;  and  there  is  a  general  appearance  of  like- 
ness in  their  work,  more  satisfactory  to  common  judges 
than  the  wholly  imaginative  arrangement  of  Turner. 

They  avoid  detail,  however,  wherever  mere  skilful 
manipulation -of  color  may  be  made  to  stand  for  it.  How 
far  such  manipulation  may  be  made  to  go  is  very  remark- 
able. It  may  be  made  to  represent  any  thing  that  has  no 
very  definite  form,  and  consequently  does  duty  for  a  great 
deal  of  hard  drawing.  These  painters  do  not  really  paint 
detail,  but  their  skilful  manipulation  conveys  the  impres- 
sion of  detail. 

I  may  make  myself  better  understood  by  naming  Mr. 
Harding  as  a  well-known  representative  of  this  order  of 
artists.  The  amount  of  manual  skill  and  dexterity  lav- 
ished by  Mr.  Harding  on  a  system  of  interpretation,  whose 
uniform  aim  and  object  is  to  avoid  any  thing  like  down- 
right study  of  detail,  is  quite  marvellous.  He  is  not  in 
any  sense  an  imitator,  but  a  skilled  interpreter  of  nature. 
I  do  not  intend  this  as  praise,  and  still  less  as  blame. 
Every  artist  must  work  according  to  his  own  constitution. 
Mr.  Harding  is  not  by  constitution  an  imitator,  but  a 
translator.  He  and  nature  do  not  speak  the  same  lan- 
guage, have  not  the  same  formulae.  He  is  not  a  student 
trying  hard  to  learn  nature's  language,  but  a  great  pro- 
fessor, foreign  to  nature,  writing  a  translation  of  nature 
into  his  own  tongue.  The  translation  is  exceedingly 


22  Painting  from  Nature. 

clever  and  brilliant,  but  it  bears  just  as  much  resem- 
blance to  the  original  as  Mr.  Pope's  translation  of  the 
"  Iliad  "  does  to  the  old  Greek.  Some  people  like  Pope 
better  than  Homer,  and  some  no  doubt  secretly  prefer 
Mr.  Harding  to  nature  ;  but  it  does  not  at  all  follow  that 
if  you  like  the  original  you  will  relish  the  translation,  nor 
the  converse. 

The  influence  which  Mr.  Harding  has  so  long  exercised 
over  the  immense  number  of  amateurs  who  put  their  trust 
in  him  has  been,  on  the  whole,  more  salutary  than  might 
have  been  expected,  considering  that  the  first  condition  of 
popularity  amongst  amateurs  is,  that  you  are  not  to  teach 
true  art,  but  a  pretty  and  cheap  substitute  for  art,  —  cheap, 
I  mean,  in  cost  of  labor.  No  drawing-master  could  earn 
his  living  by  teaching  art  seriously,  and  the  chief  anxiety 
of  every  drawing-master  is  to  invent  the  prettiest  and 
easiest  substitute  for  real  art  that  he  can.  Now,  Mr. 
Harding's  substitute  was  extremely  pretty  and  successful, 
and,  what  is  much  more  to  his  credit,  it  really  contained 
as  much  truth  as  the  amateurs  it  was  intended  for  were 
ever  likely  to  tolerate.  Up  to  a  certain  point,  Mr.  Hard- 
ing led  his  scholars  to  nature  ;  but  the  worst  of  all  such 
systems  as  his  is,  that,  once  their  fixed  point  reached,  they 
arrest  the  education  of  the  eye. 

Of  course,  Mr.  Harding  is  not  the  only  artist  of  this 
class.  They  are,  in  fact,  exceedingly  numerous,  and  each 
has  a  system  of  his  own,  in  many  cases  quite  as  original, 
if  not  so  cleverly  contrived  as  Mr.  Harding's.  Their  uni- 
form object,  so  far  as  they  are  themselves  concerned,  is  to 
escape  the  painful  elaboration  of  detail,  which  the  princi- 
ples of  imitation  demand.  Their  other  object,  as  to  their 
pupils,  is  to  supply  an  easy  and  cheap  substitute  for 
genuine  work.  Nevertheless,  they  study  nature  labori- 
ously within  the  limits  imposed  by  their  own  systems.  I 
believe  that  in  very  many  cases  such  systems  are  to 
be  attributed  entirely  to  the  fact  of  the  painter's  giving 
lessons  to  amateurs,  and  that,  if  it  were  not  necessary 
to  flatter  pupils  with  easy  methods,  such  painters  would 
often  frankly  abandon  their  systems  altogether,  and  devote 


Painting  from  Nature.  23 

themselves  in  good  earnest  to  the  study  of  nature,  accept- 
ing only  the  necessary  and  inevitable  limitations,  not 
these  unnecessary  artificial  ones. 

SHALLOW   PSEUDO-IMITATORS. 

We  begin  now  to  enter  upon  the  province  of  imitation, 
but  are  as  yet  only  on  its  frontiers. 

These  painters  do  indeed  imitate,  but  only  just  so  far 
as  a  common  and  very  careless  spectator  is  likely  to  see 
into  the  subject  when  he  idly  gazes  at  it  without  observ- 
ing it.  They  are  of  a  very  popular  order,  for  they 
accurately  reproduce,  not  the  scene  itself,  nor  any  thing 
really  resembling  it,  but  every  indolent  spectator's  im- 
pression of  it.  Their  pictures  demand  little  intelligence 
in  the  spectator  as  they  cost  little  to  the  artist.  They 
are,  therefore,  intelligible,  which  is  the  first  of  all  the 
conditions  of  saleableness,  and  such  works  are  produced 
for  the  market  in  immense  numbers. 

In  these  works  nature  is  happily  arranged  on  received 
principles  of  composition,  and  such  truths  only  are  stated 
as  are  conducive  to  prettiness  and  perfectly  easy  to  un- 
derstand. 

CLEVER   AND    LABORIOUS    PSEUDO-IMITATORS. 

They  are  not  imitators  in  the  pre-Raphaelite  sense ; 
but  their  work  from  nature  goes  very  far,  and  is  exceed- 
ingly laborious  in  detail.  The  difference  between  their 
imitation  and  pre-Raphaelite  imitation  is  very  easy  to  feel 
and  very  difficult  to  explain.  It  consists  in  this,  that  their 
fidelity  is  limited  by  habits  of  continual  alteration  and  ab- 
solute want  of  intellectual  and  moral  sympathy  with  the 
objects  they  illustrate,  so  that  they  never  seize  the  sig? 
nificant  marks.  They  admire  nature,  and  have  much 
energy  and  industry,  so  they  work  hard,  and  produce 
landscapes  very  full  of  detail ;  but  they  do  not  really 
sympathize  with  the  expression  of  inanimate  objects,  so 
as  to  render  it  with  poweV.  Nor  is  any  one  of  their 


24  Painting  from  Nature. 

details  perfectly  accurate  ;  they  do  not  love  nature  well 
enough  for  that.  They  fill  their  canvas  with  detail  to 
make  it  rich,  and  the  detail  is  really  very  cleverly  painted, 
and  all  copied  from  nature  from  beginning  to  end  out  of 
doors,  only  not  one  atom  of  it  is  thoroughly  genuine  and 
true.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  seldom  imaginative,  be- 
cause the  gift  of  invention  is  so  rare.  I  could  name  a 
score  of  successful  landscape  painters  who  belong  to  this 
class,  clever,  prosperous,  and  most  industrious  workmen 
in  a  high  branch  of  manufacture,  but  neither  true  poets  nor 
accurate  observers.  Their  habits  of  work  have  nothing 
in  common  with  Harding's  masterly  tricks  of  inter- 
pretation ;  they  are  scarcely  intellectual  enough  to  con- 
ceive and  apply  such  principles.  They  are  looked  upon 
by  the  public  as  tolerably  faithful  imitators,  the  real  fact 
being  that  they  are  only  pseudo-imitators.  As  on  the  one 
hand  their  works  have  none  of  the  majesty  of  imagination, 
so  on  the  other  they  lack  the  preciousness  of  genuine 
imitation. 

Painters  of  this  order  are  often  very  rapid  and  skilful 
in  working  from  nature,  because  the  constant  habit  of 
manufacture  leads  to  a  certain  dexterousness  quite  impos- 
sible for  close  observers  and  copyists  of  nature,  and  seldom 
compatible  with  great  depth  of  feeling.  Their  exaggera- 
tions and  changes  of  all  kinds  are  suggested  solely  by  their 
ideas  of  what  would  look  well  in  the  picture,  not  by  any 
real  feeling.  Now,  as  all  changes  are  sure  to  be  wrong 
which  are  not  dictated  imperatively  by  intense  and  irre- 
sistible emotion,  these  changes  of  theirs  are  ruinous  to  the 
value  of  their  work. 

THE    TRUE    IMITATIVE    SCHOOL. 

We  have  come  to  true  imitation  at  last.  These  painters 
work  from  nature  in  quite  a  different  sense  to  any  of  the 
preceding  ones.  They  really  endeavor  to  render  as  much 
of  nature  as  is  to  be  rendered  by  color,  but  will  not  sacri- 
fice greater  truths  to  less,  and  stop  firmly  at  that  difficult 
point  where  the  imitation  of  details,  pushed  to  its  utter- 


Painting  from  Nature.  25 

most  lawful  power,  is  to  be  sternly  arrested  before  it 
endangers  the  truth  of  the  whole  work.  Pass  this  point 
ever  so  little,  and  your  work  is  inevitably  ruined,  for  the 
over-fidelity  with  which  some  favorite  bit  of  detail  is  sure 
to  be  imitated  will  destroy  the  harmony  of  the  whole.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  you  fall  short  of  this  point,  your  art  of 
painting  from  nature  is  not  yet  quite  perfectly  and  pre- 
ciously imitative.  This  high  order  of  imitative  painting 
requires  great  knowledge  of  the  resources  of  art,  and 
infinite  patience  and  industry.  I  shall  have  more  to  say 
of  it  shortly. 

ASPIRANTS    AFTER   PERFECT   ACCURACY. 

Painters  in -whom  the  desire  for  accuracy  has  reached  a 
morbid  excess,  and  in  whose  works  the  passion  for  truth  of 
imitation  is  so  unrestrained  by  artistic  judgment  as  to  be 
destructive  to  pictorial  harmony. 

This  leads  to  the  production  of  studies,  of  which  parts 
are  well  painted,  but  entirely  out  of  harmony  with  other 
parts.  With  the  passion  for  accuracy  in  excess,  all  pro- 
duction of  true  pictorial  art  is  quite  impossible,  for  no 
natural  materials  can  be  woven  together  into  the  shape  of 
a  complete  picture  without  some  sacrifice  of  accuracy. 

It  is  impossible,  however,  to  continue  long  in  this  state 
of  mind,  which  is  merely  a  disease  of  the  imitative  facul- 
ties, and  always  leads  either  to  the  entire  abandonment  of 
the  art,  or  the  conscious  and  resolute  acceptance  of  the 
limitations  necessary  to  the  health  of  the  artistic  intellect. 

A  common  delusion  of  young  painters  is  to  suppose 
that  this  over-accuracy  is  in  itself  an  attractive  quality, 
because  it  costs  them  immense  patience  and  labor.  They 
naturally  value  it  too  much  in  proportion  to  what  it  costs 
them,  and  without  sufficient  reference  to  the  effect  it  is 
able  to  produce  on  others.  But  I  fear  that  this,  the 
costliest  of  qualities  in  a  picture,  is  the  very  one  which 
produces  the  least  effect  upon  the  world.  It  will  not  help 
a  picture  to  find  a  place  in  the  exhibition,  because  the 
judges  cannot  have  the  real  scene  before  their  eyes  for 


26  Painting  from  Nature. 

comparison,  and  always  look  for  qualities  of  composition 
which  rigid  accuracy  requires  us  to  sacrifice.  It  will  not 
command  a  purchaser,  because,  if  the  purchaser  knows  the 
scene,1*  an  accurate  transcript  of  it  will  inevitably  seem  to 
him  inadequate  and  spiritless,  whereas,  if  he  does  not 
know  it,  the  accuracy  will,  of  course,  be  quite  thrown 
away  upon  him.  It  will  not  catch  the  critics,  because 
critics  consider  accuracy  incompatible  with  imagination, 
and  therefore  do  not  consider  accurate  painters  as  artists 
at  all  in  the  higher  sense. 

And  yet  the  difference  in  cost  of  labor  and  eyesight 
between  a  work  which  is  strictly  accurate  and  another 
which  is  only  accurate  enough  for  the  purposes  of  art  is 
something  amazing. 

I  am  writing  this  in  my  tent  during  a.  little  interval 
when  I  feel  too  tired  to  go  on  with  a  difficult  piece  of  strict 
topographic  drawing. 

I  therefore  find  myself  in  a  position  to  speak  with  some 
authority  on  this  question,  for  just  at  present  I  am 
engaged  upon  a  series  of  drawings,  undertaken  for  an 
especial  purpose,  and  which  I  am  determined  to  have  as 
accurate  as  I  can  get  them. 

The  topographic  drawing  I  have  in  hand  is  of  small 
dimensions,  and  it  will  take  me,  I  can  scarcely  tell  how 
long.  The  labor  too,  whilst  I  am  doing  it,  is  extremely 
severe,  —  severe  on  the  eyes,  and  requiring  so  close  a 
degree  of  attention  that  it  is  impossible  to  pursue  it  for 
long  together  without  rest. 

But  if  I  were  not  trying  for  topographic  accuracy,  I 
could  make  a  drawing  of  the  same  scene,  which  would 
please  a  critic  or  a  council  of  academicians  much  better,  in 
a  couple  of  hours  of  easy  work,  singing  songs  all  the  time, 
or  talking  with  a  friend. 

Painters  in  whom  imitation  has  become  a  disease  work 
in  this  way,  not  exceptionally,  and  for  an  especial  purpose, 
as  I  am  doing  now,  but  habitually.  And  as  they  do  not 


*  This  for  reasons  stated  in  a  chapter  in  the  second  volume,  on  the 
relation  between  photography  and  painting. 


Painting  from  Nature.  27 

limit  themselves,  they  encounter  the  everlasting  boundaries 
with  which  the  Supreme  Artist  has  hedged  round  all  his 
poor  human  imitators,  and  so  they  ruin  all  they  do,  because 
they  do  not  know  where  to  stop.* 

I  have  thus  roughly  indicated  seven  of  the  different  classes 
of  painters,  all  of  whom  may  occasionally  work  from  nature. 
The  subdivisions  in  such  an  attempt  at  classification  are, 
however,  as  numerous  as  the  landscape  painters  them- 
selves, for  nearly  every  one  has  a  way  of  work  slightly 
differing  from  that  of  all  other  men,  even  those  of  his  own 
school  and  sect.  The  seven  divisions  are,  nevertheless, 
minute  enough  for  my  purposes.  And  I  think  it  will  be 
very  evident  that  artists  who  work  on  principles  so  widely 
different  must  produce  works  of  a  very  different  character, 
even  when  studying  from  the  same  natural  scene,  and 
further,  that  the  art  of  painting  from  nature  seen  from 
these  various  points  of  view  is  scarcely  to  be  spoken  of  as 
one  art.  It  is  at  least  seven  arts  whose  objects  are  entirely 
distinct,  and  whose  practice  differs  quite  as  essentially  as 
some  of  them  differ  from  the  .  art  of  painting  from  memo- 
randa in  the  studio.  In  speaking,  therefore,  of  painting 
from  nature  as  a  single  art,  I  must  be  understood  to  mean 
that  which  I  practise  myself,  for  I  have  not  space  in  the 
limits  of  one  chapter  to  do  any  thing  like  justice  to  the 
practice  of  other  artists,  except  so  far  as  I  may  roughly 
indicate  their  various  ways  of  work. 

The  first  secret  of  the  painter  from  nature  is  to  select 
his  subject  wisely. 

None  but  foreground  subjects  can  be  really  painted  from 
nature  in  a  climate  so  changeable  as  ours  ;  but  there  is  a 
kind  of  intermediate  art,  a  combination  of  the  two  arts  of 
painting  from  nature  and.  painting  from  memoranda,  which 
is  competent  to  deal  with  mountains. 

To  illustrate  this,  take  a  single  instance  of  no  extraor- 
dinary difficulty.  The  painter  wants  a  faithful  picture  of 

*  In  the  particular  piece  of  work  alluded  to,  I  myself  was  limited  by 
the  nature  of  my  materials,  plain  pen  and  ink,  and  the  extreme  simplicity 
of  my  aim,  which  did  not  include  either  local  color  or  light  and  shade. 
Gil  color  imposes  no  such  salutary  limitations. 


28  Painting  from  Nature. 

Ben  Cruachan.  So  he  plants  his  easel  as  near  to  the 
mountain  as  he  can  get  it,  if  he  wishes  to  see  it  at  all, 
which  of  course  must  be  a  few  miles  off.  He  sits  down 
conscientiously  to  paint  a  portrait  of  Ben  Cruachan  from 
nature. 

The  first  day  is  the  10th  of  July.  A  good,  plain  day- 
light effect  is  on  the  hill,  —  not  a  difficult  evanescent  effect, 
but  such  plain  daylight  as  an  unimaginative  copyist  likes 
best. 

The  picture  cannot  possibly  be  finished  before  the  10th 
of  August. 

On  the  10th  of  July,  the  water  is  a  deep  blue,  the 
mountain  a  pale,  but  rich  olive-green,  with  a  peculiar  vel- 
vety texture,  any  thing  but  easy  to  imitate. 

The  next  day  the  water  is  cold  gray,  almost  white,  and 
the  mountain  full  of  various  new  grays  and  deep  purples, 
with  an  entirely  new  texture  not  at  all  velvety. 

Now,  the  question  is,  whether  the  painter,  in  continuing 
to  paint  the  effect  of  the  10th  of  July  on  the  llth,  is 
painting  from  nature  or  from  memory. 

He  is  painting  from  memory.  It  is  self-deception  on 
his  part  to  fancy  that  he  is.  painting  from  nature,  merely 
because  he  is  working  out  of  doors. 

And  day  after  day  there  is  a  new  and  brilliant  effect ; 
inconceivably  more  brilliant  in  its  imposing  presence  than 
the  painter's  fast  fading  recollection  of  what  he  saw  on 
the  10th  of  July.  If  he  is  determined  to  finish  the  pic- 
ture from  nature,  in  the  sense  of  direct  copyism  of  the  hues 
before  him,  there  are  only  two  ways  of  doing  it.  Either 
he  may  paint  from  nature  day  by  day,  and  so  make  his 
picture  intensely  unnatural,  by  mixing  together  a  hundred 
incompatible  and  contradictory  effects,  or  he  may  paint 
whenever  the  chosen  effect  shall  recur,  which  may  be  five 
or  six  times  in  a  twelvemonth. 

It  might  be  objected  that  in  working  from  nature  he 
would  at  least  get  the  form  of  the  mountain  ;  that,  at  least, 
might  be  expected  to  remain  stationary. 

Not  a  bit  of  it.  The  form  of  a  mountain  under  changing 
light  is  the  most  unstable  thing  in  the  world,  except  that 


Painting  from  Nature.  29 

of  a  sea  wave.  The  perception  of  mountain  form  is  entirely 
dependent  on  effect.  A  great,  rpugh  boss  on  the  side  of  a 
mountain  is  its  principal  feature  one  minute,  and  the  next 
you  cannot  find  it,  —  seek  as  you  will,  you  cannot  find  it 
any  more  than  if  the  thing  had  been  fairly  chiselled  away 
by  the  hand  of  a  great  sculptor.  Rocks  alter  in  apparent 
shape  as  the  light  changes.  A  wreath  of  mist  creeps 
stealthily,  and  shows  you  a  chasm  you  never  suspected  yes- 
terday ;  a  sunbeam  falls,  and  a  great  crag  leaps  out  to 
bask  in  it  like  an  eagle  from  the  copse.  And  after  a  cer- 
tain practical  apprenticeship,  the  student  at  last  discovers 
that  the  only  truth  of  landscape  painting  is  temporary 
effect,  and  that  real  form  belongs  to  sculpture  alone. 

It  is,  I  hope,  unnecessary  for  me  to  explain  that  clouds 
can  never  be  painted  from  nature.  Even  the  slowest  of 
them  are  full  of  rapid  and  continual  change,  which,  how- 
ever little  seen  by  careless,  unobservant  people,  is  only  too 
evident  as  soon  as  one  attempts  to  draw  them.  The 
utmost  that  can  really  be  got  from  nature  of  a  complete 
sky  is  a  rude  pencil  memorandum  of  the  arrangement  of 
its  principal  masses,  not  pretending  to  form  in  any  part  of 
it,  still  less  to  color.  A  rapid  draughtsman  may,  however, 
get  a  tolerable  pencil  outline  of  a  single  cloud,  it  he  tries 
for  that  only.  But  all  attempts  to  paint  skies  from  nature 
are  futile.  Constable's  way  of  sketching  them  in  oil  may 
have  served  occasionally  for  a  rude  memorandum  of  the 
relations  of  color  in  a  common  lowland  sky,  but  he  had  to 
sacrifice  all  the  forms. 

Trees  may  be  painted  from  nature  if  they  are  near  to 
us,  and  on  condition  that  we  work  only  for  two  hours  at  a 
time  on  the  same  picture,  and  in  lowland  scenery  where 
there  is  much  sameness  of  effect. 

Rocks  admit  of  careful  and  accurate  painting  from 
nature,  so  of  course  does  a  great  precipice,  if  we  are  near 
to  it.  A  great  deal  of  good  material  for  artists  who  paint 
from  nature  is  to  be  had  along  our  own  coasts.  The  cliffs 
on  the  southern  coast  are  excellent  subjects,  and  the  climate 
not  unfavorable. 

Water  may  occasionally,  as  for  instance  in  rapidly  run- 


30  Painting  from  Nature. 

ning  streams,  be  painted  from  nature,  because  there  the 
same  forms  are  continually  reproduced  by  the  effect  of  the 
submerged  stones  on  the  surface  of  the  water ;  but  great 
expanses  of  broad  rivers  and  lakes  cannot  be  painted  from 
nature  at  all,  because  they  change  incessantly.  It  is  need- 
less to  add  that  the  sea  cannot  be  painted  from  nature  in 
the  strict  sense,  though  it  may,  no  doubt,  under  certain 
circumstances,  be  wise  to  paint  it  from  memoranda  in  the 
presence  of  nature. 

In  the  selection  of  climate,  a  painter  who  works  from 
nature  on  pre-Raphaelite  principles  must,  of  course,  be 
guided  by  his  practical  convenience,  and  not  by  the  splen- 
dor of  the  scenery. 

Perhaps,  of  all  the  climates  in  Europe,  that  of  the 
Highlands  of  Scotland  is  the  very  worst  for  painting  from 
nature.  The  continual  prevalence  of  rainy  weather,  the 
incessant  changes  of  effect,  the  intense  brilliance  of  the 
color,  subject  everywhere  to  sudden  and  violent  revolution, 
the  frequent  occurrence  of  low  rain-clouds  which  hide  the 
hills  much  more  effectually  than  a  cloak  hides  the  human 
form,  all  these  objections  are  in  the  aggregate  insuperable, 
and  not  to  be  lightly  laughed  away  as  small  evils  which  a 
little  resolution  would  overcome.  The  Highlands  of  Scot- 
land are  a  noble  field  for  painters  from  memoranda ;  but 
artists  who  wish  to  work  from  nature  ought  not  to  think  of 
going  there. 

On  the  other  hand,  lowland  France  is  a  perfect  climate 
for  painting  from  nature.  On  the  borders  of  Burgundy 
and  Champagne,  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Yonne,  it  is 
possible  to  work  from  nature  as  many  days  in  one  year  as 
you  would  get  in  seven  years  in  the  Highlands.  And 
those  French  subjects,  if  not  so  grand"  as  the  Highland 
scenery,  are  infinitely  prettier,  infinitely  easier  to  deal  with, 
and,  I  should  imagine,  could  be  worked  up  into  more 
popular  pictures. 

I  have  such  a  strong  dislike  to  any  thing  like  uncertainty 
or  hesitation  in  painting,  and  so  great  an  impatience  of 
alteration  in  a  picture  once  begun,  that  my  preparatory 
work  before  really  taking  up  color  is  always  rather  long 


Painting  from  Nature.  31 

and  laborious.  Every  additional  year's  experience  con- 
firms me,  however,  in  this  tendency,  and  I  have  got  so 
much  into  the  habit  of  settling  every  thing  about  a  picture 
before  I  lay  the  dead  color,  that  in  working  even  from  the 
kindest  and  most  accommodating  scenery  I  like  to  furnish 
myself  with  a  careful  study  of  form  in  pen  and  ink  on  a 
separate  sheet  of  paper  before  beginning  the  picture.  In 
lowland  scenery  I  do  not  say  that  such  precautions  are 
absolutely  necessary  ;  but  in  all  painting  of  mountains 
they  are  indispensable. 

I  have  said  that  it  is  possible  to  paint  mountains  from 
nature  by  the  help  of  memoranda.  Perhaps  such  work 
ought  rather  to  be  called  painting  from  memoranda,  aided 
by  reference  to  nature ;  but  as  the  work,  whatever  it  is,  is 
after  all  done  out  of  doors  and  not  in  the  studio,  I  have 
determined  to  treat  of  it  here  rather  than  in  the  other 
volume. 

In  attacking  a  difficult  mountain  subject,  the  most  pru- 
dent way  to  set  about  it  is,  in  my  opinion,  as  follows :  — 

First,  to  select  the  point  of  view  with  infinite  care  and 
thought,  spending  several  days  in  making  sketches  of  the 
mountain  as  seen  from  different  places,  and  afterwards 
comparing  them  and  choosing  the  place  from  which  its 
character  is  to  be  seen  best. 

The  next  thing  to  be  done  is  to  set  up  a  tent  on  the  spot, 
a  painting-tent  like  the  one  I  have  myself  invented  being 
the  best.  For  the  benefit  of  painters  I  shall  describe  it 
here,  warning  other  readers  beforehand  that  the  passage 
may  be  skipped  without  losing  the  thread  of  the  subject  we 
are  considering. 

When  describing  my  hut,*  I  took  occasion  to  observe 
that  a  tent  might  be  constructed  having  all  the  advan- 
tages of  the  hut  with  greater  space  and  superior  portability. 

I  have  since  designed  such  a  tent,  which  has  been  exe- 
cuted with  the  most  scrupulous  and  admirable  exactness 
by  that  prince  of  tent-makers,  Mr.  Benjamin  Edgington. 

This  tent  is,  I  think,  the  perfect  ideal  of  a  studio  for  an 

*  In  the  "Painter's  Camp." 

0*  THB 


32  Painting  from  Nature. 

artist  who  paints  from  nature,  and  on  a  moderate  scale.  I 
have  worked  from  nature  in  it  in  the  coldest  weather  of  an 
unusually  cold  Highland  winter,  just  as  comfortably  as  if  I 
had  been  working  in  a  room  in  London  of  no  larger  dimen- 
sions. The  tent  is  so  strong,  too,  that  it  has  resisted,  when  in 
a  very  exposed  situation,  a  series  of  equinoctial  gales  of 
truly  northern  violence.  I  have  been  perfectly  amazed  to 
see  its  light  canvas  walls  and  tall  white  roof  standing  firm 
day  after  day  in  the  midst  of  a  roaring,  rushing  stream  of 
wind,  like  a  rock  in  a  torrent  of  water. 

Its  construction  is  simple  enough  to  admit  of  easy  and 
intelligible  description. 

On  a  cube  of  eight  feet  every  way,  place  a  pyramid  six 
feet  high  and  eight  feet  square  at  its  base.  That  gives  the 
outward  form. 

The  structure  is  thus  arranged :  — 

The  perpendicular  canvas  walls  are  in  three  pieces ;  the 
pyramidal  roof  in  a  single  piece ;  then  there  is  a  lining  for 
the  whole  in  two  pieces  for  the  walls,  and  a  single  piece 
for  the  roof.  There  is  also,  of  course,  a  strong  waterproof 
cloth  for  the  floor. 

The  most  original  and,  certainly,  the  most  useful  inven- 
tion about  it  is,  however,  the  window,  which  consists  of  a 
sheet  of  the  best  plate  glass  I  could  get  in  London,  three 
feet  six  inches  long  by  eighteen  inches  high,  and  contained 
in  a  mahogany  frame.  This  glass  (always  framed  in 
mahogany)  is  kept  separately  in  an  oak  box,*  and  only 
put  into  its  place  when  the  tent  is  erected.  Another 
mahogany  frame  is  kept  fastened  to  the  canvas,  and  the 
frame  of  the  window  is  bolted  to  the  frame  on  the  canvas 
by  copper  bolts.  The  window,  so  attached,  is  watertight. 

The  tent  is  held  to  the  ground  by  twenty-four  cords  and 
thirty-six  pegs. 

The  worst  of  it  is,  that  it  takes  some  time  to  set  it  up ; 
but  for  a  picture,  or  even  a  careful  study,  this  time  is  sure 
to  be  regained  tenfold.  The  reader  will  please  to  remem- 
ber that  my  object  was  not  to  design  a  travelling  tent,  but 

*  The  box  contains  also  a  second  window,  ready  framed,  to  serve  in 
case  of  an  accident  to  the  first.  This  precaution  is  very  necessary. 


Painting  from  Nature.  33 

a  portable  studio  intended  for  prolonged  labor  in  one  place. 
The  time  spent  in  erecting  the  tent  is  always  regained  over 
and  over  again  the  first  wet  or  windy  day. 

I  use  a  stove  in  the  tent  in  winter. 

The  size  of  this  tent,  eight  feet  square,  makes  it  pos- 
sible to  paint  a  picture  three  feet  long,  in  great  comfort, 
and  to  have  a  table  for  colors  at  one's  side.  A  much 
larger  picture  might  be  painted,  by  replacing  the  central 
pole  by  four  poles  springing  from  the  four  corners  of  the 
pyramidal  roof,  and  joined  together  at  its  apex.  It  is  pos- 
sible to  paint  a  picture  four  or  five  feet  long  in  this  tent,  and 
from  nature,  in  the  coldest  winter  weather,  or  the  windiest 
time  of  the  raw  early  spring,  as  comfortably  as  if  the 
painter  were  in  a  well-lighted  closet  at  home,  of  the  same 
dimensions  as  the  tent.  I  freely  admit  that  greater  space 
would  be  pleasariter,  but  is  it  not  something  to  have  con- 
quered that  terrible  enemy,  bad  weather?  The  painter 
who  possesses  such  a  tent  need  concern  himself  very  little 
about  interruptions  which  are  fatal  to  the  excellence  of 
work  that  is  attempted  without  shelter.  Cold  blast  and 
pelting  rain  cannot  disturb  him.  On  the  wild  moorland  he 
lays  his  tenderest  films  of  color,  in  the  midst  of  its  pitiless 
storms ;  and  neither  the  rage  of  the  wind  nor  the  fury  of 
the  rain,  can  spoil  the  perfect  delicacy  of  his  faintest  hue, 
nor  the  grace  of  his  lightest  line.* 

The  tent  being  pitched  with  the  help  of  two  men,  and 
firmly  established  in  the  chosen  place,  with  its  plate- 
glass  windows  looking  towards  the  mountain,  the  next 
thing  to  be  done  is  to  provide  one's  self  with  preparatory 
memoranda. 

If  the  spot  is  a  long  way  from  an  inn,  it  is  better  for 
the  painter  to  live  in  his  tent,  and  have  another  smaller 
tent  at  hand  for  his  servant ;  but  if  an  •  inn  or  farm-house 
is  conveniently  near,  why  let  him  live  there  by  all  means, 
if  he  likes,  only  he  must  take  care  to  lock  up  his  plate- 
glass  window  in  his  box  every  night. 

*  The  cost  of  this  tent,  with  windows,  frames,  box,  &c.,  complete,  was 
a  little  under  thirty  pounds.  It  is  worth  the  money  to  any  landscape 
painter  who  works  from  nature,  and  will  pay  for  itself  in  the  first  year. 

3 


34  Painting  from  Nature. 

The  preparatory  memoranda  will  consist  first  of  a  labo- 
rious study  of  form  in  ink,  the  full  size  of  the  intended 
picture.  In  order  to  get  this  study  of  form  completed,  a 
good  deal  of  watchfulness  is  required,  especially  in  these 
Highlands  of  Scotland,  on  account  of  clouds  and  mists. 
If  the  painter  is  lucky  in  his  weather,  he  may,  however, 
get  this  study  of  form  finished  in  a  few  days,  with  hard 
labor. 

During  all  this  time,  he  must  be  on  the  lookout  for  a 
noble  effect,  and  if  a  suitable  effect  does  not  occur,  he  must 
wait  till  it  does,  before  touching  color.  In  the  .High- 
lands, one  has  never  to  wait  long  for  a  good  effect ;  the 
waiting  is  generally  for  the  form  study. 

If  there  is  any  waiting  to  be  done,  and  the  weather  is 
good  enough  for  sketching,  the  painter  ought  to  occupy 
himself  in  getting  together  as  many  memoranda  as  he 
possibly  can  of  every  thing  in  the  neighborhood  of  his  tent. 
He  will  be  glad  to  have  them  some  day,  far  away. 

If  it  does  nothing  but  rain,  and  there  is  no  chance  even 
of  sketching  outside,  it  may  still  be  possible  to  get  a  col- 
ored foreground  study  through  the  window  ;  and  this  is 
the  best  possible  time  to  get  such  a  study,  because  the 
color  of  foregrounds  is  always  richest  in  rain.  But,  lest 
the  weather  should  be  too  bad  even  for  that,  it  is  as  well 
to  be  provided  with  a  box  of  books  and  a  canister  of  the 
best  procurable  tobacco.  As  for  me,  on  such  occasions,  I 
scribble  in  pencil  in  a  note-book,  which  scribblings,  copied 
out  afterwards,  so  as  to  be  legible  enough  for  the  printers 
to  read,  have  in  the  course  of  years  accumulated  to  these 
two  volumes. 

The  effect  will  come  at  last,  and  as  it  is  sure  to  remain 
only  a  minute  or  so,  at  the  longest,  we  must  have  every 
thing  quite  ready  to  seize  it.  The  pencil  memorandum  is 
to  be  got  as  rapidly  as  possible,  the  artist  drawing  at  his 
very  utmost  speed,  and  scribbling  the  sketch  all  over  with 
letters,  according  to  some  such  plan  as  that  detailed  in  the 
chapter  on  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

Once  in  possession  of  this  memorandum,  whilst  the  im- 
pression is  yet  quite  vivid,  the  painter  ought,  before  doing 


Painting  from,  Nature.  35 

any  thing  else,  to  realize  the  effect  in  water-color,  or  pastel, 
or  in  oil  if  his  picture  is  to  be  in  oil,  trying  very  hard 
for  the  true  color,  but  giving  only  just  so  much  form  as  is 
necessary  to  the  expression  of  the  effect. 

Then  let  him  note  the  time  of  day.  In  the  chosen  effect, 
were  there  any  shadows  on  the  mountain,  —  shadows,  I 
mean,  not  of  clouds  on  the  mountain,  but  of  the  mountain's 
own  bosses  and  protuberances  on  its  own  sides  ?  If  there 
were  such  shadows,  he  ought  to  prepare  beforehand  a  care- 
ful small  study  of  the  mountain's  principal  forms,  in  indeli- 
ble brown  ink,  and  the  next  day,  at  the  precise  hour  and 
minute  when  the  chosen  effect  occurred,  he  ought,  on  the 
study  so  prepared,  to  copy  very  rapidly,  but  as  truly  as 
possible  in  the  time,  with  a  brush  full  of  sepia  or  any  other 
water  color  he  pleases,  the  exact  shape  of  every  shadow 
he  sees,  and  very  queer  unaccountable  shapes  he  will  find 
them. 

Thus,  we  have  to  make  first  a  careful  drawing  of  form, 
the  full  size  of  the  picture ;  then  a  small  memorandum  of 
effect  in  pencil  and  short-hand,  which  we  translate  into 
color  immediately  ;  then,  after  that,  a  study  of  the  forms 
of  shadows.  Once  in  possession  of  these  memoranda, 
we  are  no  longer  strictly  bound  down  to  what  we  see 
before  us,  and  may  begin  our  picture  with  a  certain  degree 
of  independence  of  Nature's  changefulness.  We  work, 
however,  with  cautious  and  continual  reference  to  the 
actual  scene. 

Painters  who  are  not  much  accustomed  to  paint  moun- 
tains from  nature  are  invariably  defeated  by  the  subtlety 
of  the  natural  lines  ;  the  extreme  refinement  of  form,  so 
different  from  the  vulgar  exaggerations  of  merely  popular 
artists,  the  infinity  of  detail,  and  the  impenetrable  mystery 
which  veils  it  all  as  with  enchantment.  Add  to  these 
difficulties  the  tremendous  one  of  Nature's  changefulness. 
Every  day  she  offers  some  new  effect  to  the  student;  some 
days  she  offers  two  or  three  hundred,  any  one  of  which,  in 
its  glorious  and  august  presence,  seems  to  him  more  noble 
and  more  worthy  to  be  painted  than  the  one  he  has  already 
selected.  The  temptations  of  the  new  effects  are  to  be- 


36  Painting  from  Nature. 

girmers  quite  irresistible.  They  alter  their  work  to  suit 
some  effect  seen  more  recently,  and  so  ruin  it.  As  for  the 
recent  effect  being  grander  than  the  one  first  chosen,  it  is 
-generally  a  mere  delusion,  for  the  comparison  instituted 
by  the  painter  cannot  really  be  between  the  two  effects,  as 
they  occurred  in  nature,  but  between  his  strong  and  vivid 
recollection  of  the  effect  of  to-day,  and  his  worn-out  im- 
pression of  the  effect  he  saw  a  fortnight  ago ;  and  no 
wonder,  if  after  a  comparison  of  this  kind,  the  most  recent 
effect  should  appear  the  most  noble  and  beautiful.  An 
experienced  workman  makes  his  choice  of  effect  very  care- 
fully, but  once,  chosen  he  abides  by  it,  and  relies  upon  it, 
nor  can  all  the  enchantments  of  subsequent  splendor  turn 
him  one  instant  from  his  purpose.  A  good  way  to  guard 
one's  self  against  this  besetting  temptation  of  recent 
effects  is,  to  make  memoranda  of  them  all  as  they  occur, 
even  though  it  may  interrupt  the  progress  of  the  picture. 
These  memoranda  will  always  be  valuable,  and  they  serve 
to  allay  the  instinctive  desire  to  represent  every  thing  that 
moves  and  excites  us. 

The  impenetrable  mystery  of  nature  is  a  great  cause  of 
defeat  to  young  artists  who,  even  when  they  have  skill 
enough  to  draw  firmly  and  accurately,  can  so  rarely  attain 
that  wonderful  evanescence  of  execution  which  represents 
just  so  much  of  objects  as  we  see  of  them  in  nature  and 
no  more.  No  object  is  ever  well  drawn  that  is  completely 
drawn,  nor  can  any  picture  ever  have  the  look  of  reality 
in  which  details,  however  numerous,  are  all  brought  out 
with  perfect  definition.  It  does  not  signify  how .  much 
work  there  may  be  in  a  picture,  where  every  detail  is 
thoroughly  defined  it  will  always  look  poor;  and  a  rapid 
sketch  by  a  real  artist,  if  only  mysterious  enough,  will 
have  more  power  over  the  mind,  and  recall  more  mightily 
the  infinity  of  nature,  than  any  quantity  of  perfectly  defi- 
nite labor.  Now  the  difficulty  of  rendering  the  mystery 
of  nature  is  intimately  associated  with  the  other  difficulty 
occasioned  by  her  changefulness.  She  generally  defines 
something  ;  some  fragment  of  the  outline  of  an  object 
comes  out  clearly  for  a  moment,  whilst  a  great  part  of 


Painting  from  Nature.  37 

the  same  outline  lies  in  various  degrees  of  semi-definition, 
and  the  rest  of  it  is  untraceable  altogether.  This  for  per- 
haps two  seconds,  but  the  third  second  the  very  part  of  the 
outline  which  was  untraceable  may  have  become  the  clear* 
est  and  most  definite,  the  part  that  was  definite  at  first 
bemg  now  quite  vague  or  perhaps  entirely  invisible.  Such 
changes  occur  incessantly  in  every  detail  of  a  great  moun- 
tain's front,  even  in  the  serenest  weather.  Any  attempt  to 
paint  such  a  detail  by  mere  ocular  copyism  must  there- 
fore be  futile,  for  a  touch  cannot  be  laid  before  it  will 
become  falsified  by  these  minute  changes;  changes  by 
ordinary  eyes  unnoticed  and  uncared  for,  but  which  can- 
not long  be  ignored  by  any  practical  student. 

The  extreme  refinement  of  form  in  natural  landscape  is 
a  point  so  little  understood  by  the  public,  and  by  the  paint- 
ers of  portrait  and  genre  who  exercise  authority  in  the 
artistic  profession,  that  I  hardly  like  to  mention  it  here  at 
all.  The  impression  amongst  figure  painters  that  land- 
scape is  easy  to  draw,  and  the  readiness  with  which, 
on  the  authority  of  figure  painters,  the  world  has  accepted 
the  doctrine,  make  it  painfully  evident  that  all  these  good 
people  have  never  really  looked  at  natural  landscape  at  all 
nor  attempted  seriously  to  copy  it.  Now,  landscape  is  not 
merely  difficult  to  'draw,  but  it  is  infinitely  difficult ;  that  is 
to  say,  that  the  best  designer  of  the  figure  now  alive  upon 
the  earth,  whoever  that  may  be,  if  he  really  set  himself  in 
earnest  to  draw  a  mountain  as  it  is,  would  find,  after  any 
quantity  of  labor  and  care,  that  he  had  only  been  able  to 
draw  it  in  a  manner  which  is  to  be  called  good  out  of  in- 
dulgence for  the  weakness  of  human  faculties,  and  in  a 
certain  restricted  sense,  and  that  the  natural  mountain  still 
remained  at  quite  an  infinite  and  unapproachable  distance 
beyond  him.  As  for  the  slight  sketches  of  mountains  which 
figure  painters  are  accustomed  to  put  behind  their  person- 
ages by  way  of  background,  they  bear  precisely  tie  same 
relation  to  real  mountain  painting  that  the  figures  we 
landscape  painters  sketch  in  our  compositions  do  to  real 
figure  painting.  Recently,  two  more  serious  attempts  at 
mountain  painting  have  been  made  by  figure  painters, 


38  Painting  from  Nature. 

and  it  is  significant  that  these  two  should  be  the  most 
refined  draughtsmen  of  their  time.  John  Lewis  attempted 
a  mountain  in  the  background  to  his  Frank  Encampment, 
.nd  Holman  Hunt  set  up  a  tent  on  the  shore  of  the  Dead 
Sea  with  the  resolution  to  try  a  range  of  mountains  in 
good  earnest.  I  appeal  to  these  two  figure  painters  whether 
mountains  are  easy  to  paint  or  not,  and  whether  their  lines 
are  subtle  and  refined  or  simple  and  rude  ?  I  am  quite 
willing  to  grant  you  that  mountains  are  simple  as  Claude 
painted  them,  —  four  straight  lines  variously  inclined,  in- 
closing a  space  of  flat  gray  paint ;  and  I  readily  admit 
that  they  are  rude  as  Salvator  rendered  them,  —  mere 
heaps  of  formless  mud  and  stone.  But  mountains  in  na- 
ture are  full  of  exquisite  and  refined  form,  needing  most 
masterly  skill  in  drawing  for  even  an  approximate  render- 
ing, such  skill  as  only  three  or  four  men  now  alive  possess, 
—  such  skill  as  the  rest  of  us  may  only  humbly  labor  for 
and  aspire  to.  How  shall  we  follow  the  lines  of  their  in- 
numerable streams?  how  render  the  roundings  of  their 
infinitely  various  surfaces,  the  delicate  moulding  of  the 
swelling  forms  between  the  streams,  the  projections  of  the 
descending  slopes  throwing  all  the  sculpture  of  the  great 
mountain  front  into  intricate  fore-shortening,  full  of  diffi- 
cult perspective  ?  Mountains  easy  to  paint  indeed  !  If 
they  are  so  very  easy,  how  does  it  happen  that  only  one  or 
two  artists  have  ever  managed  to  paint  them  in  even  an 
endurable  manner  ?  The  very  best  of  us  can  but  give  a 
sort  of  abstract  of  mountain.  No  man  ever  really  drew 
a  mountain  front  in  its  infinite  fulness,  and  no  man  ever 
will  draw  one,  for  such  work  is  beyond  all  human  power. 
The  most  masterly  mountain  painting  in  the  world  is  noth- 
ing but  a  well-selected  abstract  and  abridgment,  choosing 
the  most  expressive  lines,  but  not  rendering  one  line  out 
of  ten.  And  in  those  lines  that  we  do  render  how  are  we 
to  approach  the  ineffable  tenderness  and  subtlety  of  na- 
ture ?  What  the  coarseness  of  our  faculties  exaggerates 
into  strong  curves  are  often  so  slightly  different  from 
straight  lines  that  nothing  but  the  photograph  can  render 
them  without  either  omitting  the  curve  altogether  or  de- 


Painting  from  Nature.  39 

stroying  its  perfect  delicacy  by  exaggeration.  And  is  not 
the  habit  of  exaggeration  just  as  often  a  sign  of  mere 
bluntriess  and  coarseness  as  of  noble  emotion  ?  We  may 
exaggerate  because  we  feel  strongly,  but  I  fear  we  far 
oftener  exaggerate  because  we  do  not  feel  delicately.  Per- 
fect drawing,  like  perfect  cookery,  or  perfect  rowing,  or  rid- 
ing, or  sailing,  or  indeed,  so  far  as  I  know  acy  thing  else  that 
men  do,  becomes  in  its  latest  advance  an  exceedingly  delicate 
business,  dealing  with  subtle  distinctions  which  the  un- 
trained faculties  cannot  perceive  at  all.  For  the  perfectly 
trained  man,  however  strong  he  may  be,  is  also  much  re- 
fined by  his  training,  and  in  his  strongest  exercise  of  pou  er 
is  full  of  grace  and  gentleness  and  self-restraint,  only 
untrained  and  inexperienced  hands  using  violence.  And 
the  more  refined  the  skill  of  the  draughtsman  the  less  he 
will  need  exaggeration,  owing  to  his  habitual  self-govern- 
ment and  moderation,  from  which  the  slightest  departure 
is  at  once  recognized  as  the  sign  of  overpowering  emotion. 
It  is  like  the  writing  of  a  great  master  in  words,  who  will 
express  himself  strongly  rather  by  the  exact  and  adhesive* 
fitness  of  his  words  to  the  occasion  than  by  their  violence ; 
or  like  the  hostility  of  a  perfectly  refined  lady,  who  will 
inflict  acute  torture  in  the  gentlest  phrases,  whereas  her 
sisters  in  Billingsgate,  coarser  but  not  so  cruel,  are  obliged 
to  seek  the  most  sounding  epithets. 

Of  all  exaggeration  in  landscape-painting  the  commonest 
is  exaggeration  of  height  in  high  objects,  and  consequently 
of  steepness  in  their  sloping  lines.  This  is  universal  with 
all  landscape  painters,  and  I  believe  the  landscape  painter 
never  lived  who  did  not  habitually  exaggerate  height  and 
steepness.  But  no  one  ever  exaggerates  the  length  of  a 
horizontal  line.  If,  for  instance,  a  mountain  to  be  true 
ought  to  be  two  feet  high  and  six  feet  long  in  a  large 
picture,  the  chances  are  that  a  painter  will  make  it  about 
three  feet  high  and  five  feet  long.  Turner  exaggerated 

*  In  good  joiner's  work  the  strength  consists  very  much  in  exquisitely 
true  jltting.  If  a  piece  of  wood  is  perfectly  fitted  to  its  place  it  is  easy  to 
make  it  stick  there  without  using  violence,  and  so  if  a  word  is  well  fitted 
it  will  stick  also  and  for  ever. 


40  Painting  from  Nature. 

in  this  way  habitually  ;  but  I  know  of  no  instance  in 
which  he  exaggerated  the  proportionate  length  of  a  hori- 
zontal line.  Our  most  rigid  topographical  painters  may 
ultimately,  if  they  work  in  entire  submission  to  photog- 
raphy, and  with  its  continual  guidance,  come  to  produce 
unexaggerated  work ;  but  if  ever  such  work  shall  be  ex- 
hibited nobody  will  believe  it  to  be  true,  because  it  will 
fail  to  give  the  impression  of  steepness  and  height  that 
nature  produces  on  her  own  scale,  with  exactly  the  same 
lines.  I  have  occasionally,  for  an  especial  purpose,  made 
rigidly  unexaggerated  topographical  drawings  ;  but  they  al- 
ways look  so  flat  and  tame  that  people  intimately  acquainted 
with  the  scenery  never  know  what  they  are  intended  for, 
and  I  have  always  to  prove  their  truth  by  a  comparison 
with  photographs  of  the  same  places  taken  by  myself. 
Now,  it  is  evident  that  as  a  painter  cannot  always  be  at 
hand  with  a  portfolio  of  photographs  to  defend,  in  hours 
of  reasoning,  the  literal  exactness  of  accurate  work,  such 
work,  in  his  absence,  must  continually  be  slighted  as 
feeble,  and  even  condemned  as  unfaithful.  And  my  usual 
work,  in  comparison  with  the  work  of  many  other  land- 
scape painters,  may  be  wanting  in  that  peculiar  kind  of 
vigor  which  is  attainable  by  making  sloping  lines  vertical, 
yet  I  know  now  by  strict  measurement  that  it  is  full  of 
demonstrable  exaggerations. 

If  landscape  painters  painted  on  thin  sheets  of  vulcan- 
ized india-rubber,  instead  of  canvas,  their  pictures  might 
be  made  tolerably  true  by  a  simple  process.  It  would 
then  only  be  necessary  to  stretch  the  india-rubber  sheet 
horizontally,  and  the  drawing  would  come,  in  a  rude  way, 
nearly  right.  Some  painters  would  need  more  stretching 
than  others,  but  even  Mr.  Newton,  the  truest  painter  of 
Highland  landscape  who  ever  lived,  would  need  a  little 
stretching.  His  noble  "  mountain  gloom  in  Glen  Coe " 
shortens  the  horizontal  length  of  the  rocky  mass  in  the 
middle  distance,  and  so  exaggerates  its  vertical  height. 

You  will,  however,  constantly  find  that  there  is  a  nota- 
ble difference  between  the  exaggerations  of  true  men  and 
false.  When  a  true  artist  exaggerates,  it  is  not  from 


Painting  from  Nature.  41 

coarseness  of  perception,  but  strength  of  enthusiasm, 
whereas  the  false  one  exaggerates  one  fact  merely  be- 
cause he  is  blind  to  all  the  rest.  In  mountain  drawing, 
in  addition  to  the  exaggeration  of  height  and  steepness 
already  mentioned,  bad  painters  always  exaggerate  rugged- 
ness,  and  always  curvature ;  whereas  good  ones,  though 
they  usually  exaggerate  height,  because  •  they  are  forced 
to  do  so,  in  order  to  produce  the  impression  they  desire, 
rarely  exaggerate  curves  and  projections  with  any  thing 
like  violence,  because  they  perceive  and  relish  the  reserve 
and  delicacy  of  nature.  The  reader  would  understand 
this  at  once  if  he  had  the  opportunity  of  comparing  one  of 
Turner's  mountains  with  any  specimen  of  mountain  draw- 
ing by  our  third-rate  water-color  men.* 

If  I  can  judge  of  the  progress  of  others  by  my  own,  I 
should  say  that  one  of  the  clearest  signs  of  advancement 
in  drawing  is  a  steady  increase  in  refinement  of  line  and 
consequent  moderation,  and  that  the  best  proof  of  prog- 
ress in  color  is  an  increasing  relish  for  slight  gradations 
and  faint  reliefs,  and  quiet  harmonies.f 

The  supreme  difficulty  in  painting  from  nature  is  to 
know  what  to  take  and  what  to  leave,  how  far  to  follow 

*  If  the  reader  cares  to  follow  out  the  subject  of  exaggeration  as  it 
affects  our  popular  types  of  figure  painting,  he  will  find,  on  comparing 
what  are  considered  good  Academy  studies  with  photographs  of  the  same 
models,  that  figure  painters  have  a  constant  habit  of  exaggeration  in  the 
volume  of  muscle,  and  that  they  mark  all  projections  too  violently  on  the 
human  form,  just  as  the  landscape  painters  do  on  the  mountains.  This 
makes  photographs  of  the  naked  figure  look  thin  and  ridiculous,  for  none 
but  the  best  made  persons  look  very  classical  without  their  clothes.  Yet 
the  photograph  is  nearly  true  to  the  actual  form  (not  quite,  for  several 
reasons  too  long  to  be  explained  here),  and  the  common  Academy  study 
is  a  bastard  ideal  made  up  of  the  model,  much  exaggerated,  together  with 
confused  reminiscences  of  Raphael  and  the  Greeks. 


enough  to  look  quite  right,  and  the  fourth,  being  done  when  I  had  become 
conscious  of  the  habit  of  exaggeration,  and  was  striving  against  it,  so 
true  as  to  seem  false,  —  that  is,  the  reverse  of  exaggerated. 

To  complete  the  series  I  took  a  photograph  of  the  same  subject,  which 
proved  that  the  last  drawing  was  nearly  true,  but  still  exaggerated; 
whilst  the  exaggeration  in  the  earlier  drawings  was  altogether  out- 
rageous. 


42  Painting  from  Nature. 

nature,  how  to  select  the  most  essential  and  mutually 
helpful  truths.  We  cannot  have  all  the  truths,  do  what 
we  will. 

How  far  are  we  to  be  slaves  to  the  subject,  and  when 
are  we  to  act  jn  something  like  independence  of  it  ? 

All  painting  from  nature  includes  a  great  deal  of  paint- 
ing from  memory,  and  this  is  even  rendered  more  difficult 
out  of  doors  than  in  the  studio,  by  the  presence  of  other 
and  embarrassing  facts  which  it  costs  us  a  great  effort  to 
reject.  It  is  true,  for  example,  that  in  painting  our  moun- 
tain from  nature  we  have  to  color  from  nature,  but  in  quite 
a  peculiar  sense,  not  in  the  way  of  simple  imitation,  and 
matching  of  particular  tints.  The  color  of  the  mountain 
never  continuing  the  same  for  a  single  hour,  how  is  it 
possible  to  match  its  hues  ?  If  you  match  them  for  a  few 
square  inches  of  your  picture  to-day,  and  match  the  other 
hues  for  a  few  square  inches  to-morrow,  what  good  will 
come  of  it?  Will  not  the  harmony  of  your  picture  be 
utterly  and  irretrievably  ruined,  and  the  whole  work  be 
quite  false  and  monstrous  ?  Then  why  are  you  to  color 
from  nature  at  all  if  you  may  not  match  the  natural  tints 
you  see  ?  Why  not  paint  such  pictures  entirely  in  the 
studio  ?  The  answer  is,  that  you  are  to  paint  from  nature 
in  order  to  avoid  falsity,  and  that  you  may  have  the  oppor- 
tunity of  always  referring  to  nature  for  any  fact  you  find 
it  necessary  to  ascertain.  Now,  many  facts  of  local  color 
may  be  ascertained  through  and  in  spite  of  the  intervening 
veil  of  transient  color.  For  instance,  in  painting  a  High- 
land hill  in  late  autumn,  you  may  always  ascertain  (when 
the  weather  will  allow  of  your  seeing  it  at  all)  where  the 
patches  of  red  fern  are,  and  what  is  their  shape,  a  thing 
not  easy  to  invent  rightly  in  a  studio  ;  and  of  the  trees 
in  the  forest  on  the  mountain's  flank,  you  may  see  with 
great  precision  how  far  they  are  reddened  by  the  death 
of  their  leaves.  But  if  you  merely  try  to  imitate  the 
mountain  as  you  see  it,  not  taking  the  trouble  to  use  your 
intellect  as  well  as  your  eyes,  your  picture,  though  painted 
from  nature,  will  be  as  false  and  discordant  as  if  it  had 
been  painted  in  the  dingiest  studio  in  Newman  Street. 


Painting  from  Nature.  43 

So  that  self-reliance  is  one  of  the  first  lessons  a  young 
artist  has  to  learn,  in  working  directly  from  nature.  He 
is  to  get  all  he  oan  from  the  natural  scene,  but  to  be  thor- 
oughly independent  of  it,  and  only  submit  to  its  guidance 
just  so  far  as  may  assist  the  truth  of  his  work.  All 
slavish,  Chinese  imitation  of  separate  bits  is  death  and 
destruction  to  the  whole  picture.  Nor  must  any  reader 
misunderstand  the  reason  for  this  most  essential  of  all 
principles.  The  object  of  every  artist  who  takes  his 
canvass  out  of  doors  is  to  get  more  truth.  It  is  true  that 
Nature  offers  us  a  continual  feast,  yet  it  would  argue  but 
a  slight  appreciation  of  the  delicacy  of  her  banquet  if  we 
were  to  mingle  all  her  most  exquisite  dishes  into  one 
abominable  mess.  •  We  are  not  to  mix  together  discordant 
and  contradictory  truths,  and  mere  ocular  imitation  is  sure 
to  do  so.  What  there  is  of  simple  imitation  in  good 
painting  from  nature  is  really  very  slight,  for  it  is  mod- 
ified first  by  constant  obedience  to  the  memory,  often  in 
direct  opposition  to  the  facts  immediately  before  our  eyes ; 
and  farther,  it  is  overruled  by  the  necessity  of  compromise 
in  all  translation  of  nature  into  art,  a  necessity  occasioned 
by  the  difference  in  point  of  light  between  flake  white  and 
the  sun,  and  the  difference  in  point  of  depth  between  ivory 
black  in  broad  daylight  and  the  intense  vacuity  of  natural 
darkness.  None  but  very  simple  people  ever  imagine 
that  the  most  accurate  work  from  nature  is  to  be  accom- 
plished without  very  great  reliance  on  the  memory  and 
considerable  effort  of  the  intellect.  It  requires,  no  doubt, 
great  delicacy  of  hand  and  infinite  clearness  of  vision,  but 
it  requires,  in  addition  to  these,  much  of  that  strength  of 
memory,  and  all  that  knowledge  of  the  resources  of  art, 
which  are  essential  to  the  painter  who  works  exclusively 
in  the  studio.  Hence,  the  very  curious  and  interesting 
truth,  that  a  painter  who  can  produce  a  good  picture  in  a 
studio  from  slight  memoranda  is  more  likely  to  paint  well 
from  nature  than  one  who  has  never  done  any  thing  else, 
because  he  has  acquired  the  habit  of  self-reliance,  and  can 
hold  straight  on  his  own  path  without  being  allured  away 
from  it  by  the  attractions  of  the  ever-changing  subject. 


44  Painting  from  Nature. 

The  artist  who  paints  from  nature  must  be  content  to 
produce  little,  if  he  cares  for  accuracy.  Watch  a  careful 
painter  at  work,  and  you  will  find  his  time  incessantly 
divided  between  two*  distinct  acts,  —  looking  at  nature, 
and  putting  down  what  he  has  seen.  First,  the  retina 
must  receive  a  strong  impression,  and  then,  whilst  this 
remains  quite  vivid  in  the  memory,  it  must  be  got*  into 
color.  But  this  looking  at  nature  occupies  as  much  time  as 
the  actual  work  of  painting.  An  artist,  therefore,  who 
works  directly  from  nature,  in  the  pre-Raphaelite  manner, 
must  spend  twice  as  much  time  on  his  picture  as  if  he 
did  it  from  memory  and  invention  in  the  Turnerian  man- 
ner. When  we  take  the  nature  of  the  two  procedures 
into  consideration,  there  is  nothing  surprising  in  this  dif- 
ference. 

And  it  needs  hard  looking  to  see  the  subtlety  of  a  nat- 
ural line.  The  difference  between  the  active  looking  of  a 
highly-trained  painter  at  work  from  nature,  and  the  mere 
passive,  indolent  looking  of  the  people  who  presume  to 
judge  of  his  work,  is  something  quite  wonderful.  It  is  at 
least  as  great  as  the  difference  of  muscular  exertion  be- 
tween a  trained  Cambridge  rower  pulling  at  speed  in  an 
eight-oar,  and  a  lady  lolling  in  her  carriage.  It  is  this 
difference  between  active  and  passive  looking  which  ac- 
counts for  so  much  ignorance  of  the  commonest  natural 
phenomena  on  the  part  of  people  who  live  constantly  in 
their  very  presence.  Of  all  the  boatmen  on  the  French 
rivers,  how  many  do  you  think  would  recognize  the  truth 
of  Turner's  river  painting  ?  Of  all  the  farmers  and  peas- 
ants in  the  Highlands,  or  in  Switzerland,  how  many  are 
competent  judges  of  mountain  drawing?  These  good 
'people  have  the  facts  before  their  eyes  every  day,  and  all 
day  long  ;  but  they  only  look  at  them  passively,  not  ac- 
tively ;  and  so  they  never  see  them  at  all.  Of  course,  the 
landscape  painter  himself  looks  at  very  many  things  quite 
passively  also.  Put  a  landscape  painter  an^l  any  lady  of 
ordinary  powers  of  observation  into  a  ball-room,  and  it  is 
probable  that  the  landscape  painter  would  only  passively 
receive  a  most  confused  impression  of  a  great  quantity  of 


Painting  from,  Nature.  45 

muslin,  and  lace,  and  jewelry  ;  whereas,  the  lady,  unless 
quite  exceptionally  indifferent  to  such  matters,  would  look 
at  it  all  actively,  and,  by  the  time  the  ball  was  over,  be  able 
to  describe  with  wonderful  accuracy  and  minuteness  the 
dress  and  ornaments  of  half  the  ladies  there.  The  fact  is, 
we  all  look  actively  at  things  which  interest  us,  but  only 
from  the  point  of  view  of  our  especial  interest,  and  the 
impressions  we  receive  are  determined  for  us  by  pur  men- 
tal state.  A  general,  examining  a  country  where  he  will 
have  to  conduct  the  operations  of  war,  receives  an  im- 
pression very  different  from  that  which  he,  the  very  same 
individual,  would  have  received  if  he  had  been  trained  as 
a  landscape  painter,  and  had  visited  the  same  country  for 
purposes  of  study.  And  even  without  pre-supposing  the 
great  difference  which  a  different  training  would  have 
produced,  take  a  man  as  he  is,  and  if  that  man  is  large- 
minded  enough  to  be  able  to  see  a  thing  from  two  points 
of  view,  what  he  will  see  will  depend  entirely  on  the  state 
of  mind  in  which  he  may  happen  to  be  at  the  time  of 
looking.  If  a  painter  has  property,  and  is  competent  to 
take  care  of  it,  you  may  be  quite  sure  that  such  artistic 
picturesqueness  as  depends  upon  the  ruinous  condition  of 
buildings  will  give  him  little  satisfaction  on  his  own  estate, 
it  being  generally  pleasanter  to  contemplate  ruin  on  other 
people's  property  than  on  one's  own.  When  looking  over 
the  condition  of  his  buildings,  you  may  rely  upon  it  that 
such  a  painter,  however  strong  his  love  of  good  artistic 
material,  would  rather  find  them  hideously  ugly  and  in 
excellent  repair  than  ruinously  pretty  and  picturesque, 
and  that  a  few  acres  of  wretched-looking  building-land  in 
the  middle  of  a  great  manufacturing  town,  all  black  with 
ashes  and  trodden  into  hideous  foulness  of  formless  mire, 
would  give  more  pleasure  to  his  eye  as  proprietor  than  a 
purple  expanse  of  the  loveliest  heather  in  the  Highlands. 
And,  therefore,  in  looking  over  his  property,  it  is  probable 
that  a  painter  would  not  see  even  such  elements  of  the 
picturesque  as  it  might  possess  ;  for  since  the  picturesque 
is  generally  a  sign  of  want  of  repair,  its  delightful  or 
artistic  aspect  is  hardly  ever  visible  to  the  eyes  of  the 


46  Painting  from  Nature. 

proprietor.  In  exactly  the  same  way  a  painter  who  had 
a  yacht  would  not  like  her  to  be  picturesque,  but  neat, 
smart,  orderly,  and  swift ;  leaving  the  picturesque  of  sail- 
ing to  poor  fishermen  and  such  like,  whose  glorious,  but 
dirty  and  uncomfortable  craft  he  would  admire  with  all 
sincerity,  and  paint  with  perfect  love  and  delight.  And  if 
by  accident,  or  neglect,  something  about  his  own  yacht 
were  to  assume  a  slightly  picturesque  aspect,  the  owner, 
though  a  painter,  would  probably  not  see  it,  but  only  be 
angry  with  it  as  a  gardener  is  with  some  lovely  wild  plant 
that  he  tears  up  and  throws  on  a  dung-hill  because  it  is 
called  a  "  weed." 

From  these  considerations  it  follows  that,  since  artistic 
looking  is  an  active  operation,  we  ought  to  do  it  ener- 
getically. The  way  to  paint  successfully  from  nature  is 
to  apply  great  will  and  energy  to  the  work.  Resolute 
active  attention  is  wanted  ;  not  merely  passive  attention. 
For,  unless  the  attention  can  be  strongly  concentrated  on 
the  subject,  all  truthful  painting  is  hopeless.  In  drawing 
and  painting  from  nature,  nothing  is  to  be  done  with  a 
wandering  mind.  The  work  requires  vigorous  applica- 
tion, or  it  is  sure  to  be  untrue.  First,  hard  looking  before 
every  stroke  ;  then,  stern  effort  of  memory  to  retain  the 
impression  whilst  we  are  transposing  it  to  the  key  of 
the  picture.  The  necessity  for  this  transposition  doubles 
the  intellectual  labor  of  the  painter.  In  painting  mountains 
from  nature,  it  so  very  rarely  happens  that  the  color  of 
the  mountain,  as  we  see  it  whilst  we  paint,  is  the  same  as 
it  was  when  we  decided  on  the  effect,  that  an  entire  trans- 
position of  every  detail  from  one  key  into  another  is  a 
matter  of  continual  necessity.  Add  to  this  the  farther 
translation  of  the  transposed  passage  from  the  full  and 
perfect  tones  of  nature  into  the  fractional  tones  of  art,  and 
you  have  a  pretty  piece  of  work  to  do  with  the  eye 
and  brain  before  any  true  stroke  can  be  laid  by  the  hand. 
The  consequence  of  all  this  is,  that  painting  from  nature 
is  very  tiring,  and  cannot  be  long  continued  without  rest, 
if  it  is  to  be  done  really  well.  As  soon  as  ever  the  mind 
and  eye  become  in  the  least  fatigued,  and  cease  to  operate 


Painting  from  Nature.  47 

with  perfect  vigor,  it  is  time  to  give  up,  or  the  work  will 
be  spoiled.  Four  hard  hours  a  day  with  a  rest  after  each 
hour  are  as  much  as  a  painter  ought  generally  to  paint 
from  nature,  unless  he  is  unusually  strong.  The  rest  of 
his  day  may  be  employed  in  free  sketching,  or  quiet  obser- 
vation of  natural  facts,  noting  them  down  in  a  memo- 
randum-book. 

A  curious  result  in  popular  criticism  of  the  difference 
between  active  and  passive  looking  is,  that  the  critic,  who 
looks  passively,  finds  fault  with  the  painter  who  looks 
actively.  I  have  heard  such  critics  declare  that  no  detail 
was  to  be  seen  in  nature,  and  thence  deduce  the  conclu- 
sion that  painters  ought  not  to  paint  detail.  But  the  true 
painter  does  not  paint  what  an  unobservant  spectator  sees, 
but  what  he  sees  himself,  which  is  altogether  a  different 
matter.  I  can  very  well  believe  that  to  people  who  never 
really  look  at  nature,  no  details  are  visible :  I  also  believe 
that  the  broadest  effects  of  light,  and  the  most  obvious 
facts  of  form,  are  never  seen  by  them ;  but  I  repudiate 
the  doctrine  that  a  painter  is  to  regulate  his  expression  of 
natural  truth  by  a  reference  to  the  degree  of  information 
on  the  subject  possessed  by  people  who  have  not  yet 
learned  the  use  of  their  eyes.  To  such  critics,  I  always 
feel  tempted  to  say  (if  politeness  did  not  forbid  such 
excessive  candor),  "You  are  not  to  elevate  your  own 
powers  into  a  standard  of  human  attainment,  nor  are  you 
to  be  angry  with  painters  because  they  see  farther  into 
nature  than  you  can.  This  kind  of  seeing  comes  of  such 
hard  labor  as  you  have  never  given ;  and  you  are  not  to 
criticise  the  report  of  the  seer,  but  to  accept  from  it  so 
much  instruction  as  your  limited  preparatory  education 
will  enable  you  to  receive."  This  sort  of  answer  would 
probably  not  tend  to  keep  the  said  critics  in  a  good  humor; 
but  just  imagine  how  absurd  and  unreasonable  we  should 
all  think  it  to  restrain  the  other  revelators  of  natural  truths 
to  the  revelation  of  such  truths  only  as  are  already  per- 
fectly familiar  to  all  mankind  !  When  the  function  of  the 
painter  shall  be  rather  better  understood,  let  us  hope  that 
this  imbecile  doctrine,  that  he  has  no  right  to  see  deeper 


48  Painting  from  Nature. 

and  know  more  than  other  people,  will  die,  like  its  sister 
doctrines,  that  have  so  long  retarded  the  advance  of 
science ;  let  us  even  hope  that  the  world  will  ultimately 
perceive  that  the  especial  duty  and  function  of  the  artist 
is  precisely  to  see  farther  than  the  rest  of  mankind, 
and  to  lead  the  eyes  of  all  men  to  the  deepest  truths  of 
nature. 

It  is  needless  to  state  here  that  no  landscape  can  be 
painted  from  nature  on  such  a  scale,  or  with  such  a  degree 
of  finish,  as  would  demand  more  than  a  very  few  weeks 
for  its  completion.  The  changes  in  local  color  produced 
by  the  continual  advance  or  decline  of  vegetation  are  so 
incessant  and  so  great,  that  to  paint  longer  than  three  or 
four  weeks  on  one  canvas,  would  generally  involve  the 
registering  of  inconsistent  and  contradictory  facts,  and 
consequently  destroy  the  truth  of  the  work.  In  the 
depth  of  winter,  however,  a  longer  time  may  be  given ; 
and  with  a  tent  like  mine,  it  is  just  as  easy  to  paint  from 
nature  in  winter  as  in  summer,  except  that  the  days  are 
shorter. 

With  regard  to  methods  of  work,  every  thing  depends  on 
the  student's  own  habits.  Painters  generally  work  best  in 
the  way  they  are  accustomed  to,  and  there  are  many  pro- 
cesses in  oil-painting  which  will  yield  good  results  in  the 
hands  of  those  who  have  practised  them.  The  best  and 
most  general  counsel  I  have  to  offer  is,  to  rely  on  opaque 
color,  separating  the  work  as  much  as  possible  into  distinct 
processes,  and  advancing  step  by  step  from  great  masses 
to  smaller  masses  till  you  come  to  the  minutest  details, 
carrying  the  whole  picture  steadily  on  together,  and  grad- 
ually evolving,  as  it  were,  the  detail  out  of  the  mass.  This 
is  the  safest  way  ;  but  every  artist  paints  exactly  as  he 
pleases,  and  all  true  painters  hate  and  scorn  fixed  rules 
and  methods  of  execution.  And  when  I  say  "  rely  on 
opaque  color,"  I  do  not  pretend  to  dictate  what  is  legiti- 
mate and  what  not.  I  advocate  opaque  color  because  I 
am  convinced  that  a  steady  adherence  to  it  would  do  more 
to  correct  the  worst  defects  of  vulgar  English  execution 
than  any  amount  of  lecturing,  and  because  half  our  land- 


Painting  from  Nature.  49 

scape  painters  are  ruined  by  resorting  to  glazing  for  effects 
of  transparency  and  gradation  which  could  be,  and  ought 
to  be,  obtained  by  fair  downright  painting  with  solid  tints. 
I  know  that  it  is  very  laborious  to  work  such  tints  till 
they  look  quite  right,  but  it  is  also  exceedingly  instructive, 
and  the  more  so,  that  they  never  flatter  the  artist  with  a 
false  appearance  of  success.  If  he  has  fairly  mastered  the 
subject  and  can  paint  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  it 
is  astonishing  how  obediently  all  these  stubborn  opaque 
tints  will  minister  to  his  desire ;  but  in  the  hands  of 
ignorance  and  empty  pretension  they  are  shockingly  frank 
and  outspoken,  and  cry  aloud  to  the  whole  world,  "  This 
man  is  not  our  master  !  " 

The  use  of  opaque  color  forces  one  to  pay  great  atten- 
tion to  the  truth  of  every  tint  and  to  gradation,  without 
which  all  merely  opaque  color  is  quite  intolerable,  whereas 
a  glaze  will  often  look  dangerously  pretty  and  attractive 
when  it  is  neither  true  in  color  nor  rightly  gradated.  I 
have  alluded  to  the  subject  of  technical  work  at  the  con- 
clusion of  the  chapter  on  Painting  from  Memoranda.  I 
may  say  here  that  the  painter  of  mountains  is  not  to  let 
himself  be  guided  by  the  practice  of  figure  painters,  who 
deal  with  objects  so  near  to  the  spectator,  that  there  is  no 
atmosphere  to  be  represented.  Thus,  the  advice  of  Ru- 
bens, to  keep  white  out  of  shadows,  is  to  be  rejected 
without  hesitation  by  the  painter  of  mountains,  who  will 
generally  require  white  in  every  shadow  he  paints,  on 
account  of  the  depth  of  air  between  the  spectator  and  all 
mountain  shadows.  And  one  reason  why  I  recommend 
the  painter  of  mountains  to'  rely  upon  opaque  color  is, 
because  it  is  likely  to  teach  him  to  paint  atmosphere, 
which,  in  oil,  cannot  be  got  out  of  transparent  color. 

Before  quitting  the  subject  of  painting  from  nature,  I 
desire  to  add  a  few  observations  on  the  advantages  and 
dangers  of  the  practice. 

The  advantages  are  twofold  ;  some  of  them  belong  to  the' 
picture,  and  others  to  the  artist. 

A  picture  which  is  painted  from  nature,  if  well  done,  is 
sure  to  contain  many  truths  which  would  have  escaped  the 

4 


50  Painting  from  Nature. 

strongest  memory  in  the  studio,  unless  aided  by  memo- 
randa as  copious  in  detail  as  the  very  picture  itself.  Such 
works  have,  therefore,  a  peculiar  value  for  their  authen- 
ticity, independently  of  their  intellectual  or  artistic  value. 
When  strictly  topographical,  as  Seddon's  Jerusalem,  in  the 
National  Gallery,  or  Brett's  Val  d'Aosta,  they  consider- 
ably exceed  the  most  perfect  photograph  in  interest  and 
value  as  records  of  the  scene  they  represent.  The  details 
cannot  be  quite  so  accurately  drawn  as  in  the  photograph, 
nor  so  minute,  but  there  are  more  of  them  in  the  picture  ; 
and,  in  addition  to  this,  we  have  the  facts  of  color  and 
atmosphere,  which  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  our  im- 
pression of  any  natural  scene,  and  which  it  is  consequently 
very  desirable  to  preserve  in  a  record  of  it. 

The  advantages  of  painting  from  nature  are,  however, 
still  more  striking  as  they  concern  the  artist  himself. 

It  is  not  for  what  he  does-,  but  for  what  he  learns,  that 
the  practice  is  so  useful.  Whilst  he  is  painting  a  scene 
under  one  effect,  he  sees  it  under  a  thousand,  and  is  inces- 
santly occupied  in  comparing  them.  He  is  always  learn- 
ing something  which  he  did  not  intend  to  learn  ;  knowledge 
of  all  kinds  being  brought  before  him  as  he  sits  at  work 
by  the  inevitable  changes  of  the  natural  scene.  He  intends 
to  paint  Ben  Cruachan  in  clear  weather,  and  he  has  not 
been  two  days  at  work  before  the  whole  mountain  is  veiled 
in  a  half-transparent  mist.  If  the  painter  has  any  sense, 
instead  of  being  angry  at  the  mist,  he  will  set  to  work  and 
study  it,  and  learn  the  laws  of  evanescence.  Round  about 
his  tent,  in  the  intervals  of  painful  labor,  he  will  find  a 
thousand  objects  of  interest  —  beautiful  plants  and  mosses, 
delightful  studies  of  rock  and  tree  forms  —  which  he  may 
as  well  sketch  whilst  he  has  the  opportunity,  and  about 
which  he  consequently  learns  a  great  many  truths  which 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  particular  picture  he  is 
engaged  upon,  but  which  will  be  of  the  greatest  use  to 
his  education  as  a  painter.  I  attach  much  greater  impor- 
tance to  the  utility  of  the  new  practice  of  painting  from 
nature  as  a  means  of  forcing  painters  to  see  facts  they 
never  would  have  thought  of  looking  for,  than  with  refer- 


Painting  from  Nature.  51 

ence  to  the  quality  of  the  pictures  so  produced,  which 
are  generally  crude,  often  inconsistent  and  contradictory, 
and  nearly  always  wanting  in  harmony  as  works  of  art. 

The  dangers  of  painting  from  nature  are  more  obvious. 
It  undoubtedly  weakens  the  memory  and  deadens  the 
inventive  faculty,  and  that  to  such  an  extent,  that  if  per- 
sisted in  without  frequent  alternation  with  studio  work, 
or  unless  counteracted  by  the  continual  practice  of  draw- 
ing from  the  memory  with  the  express  object  of  preserving 
its  power,  the  habit  of  painting  from  nature  will  deprive 
the  artist  of  that  faculty  altogether.  I  have  said  else- 
where that  you  cannot  even  paint  from  nature  without 
memory  ;  but  in  painting  from  nature  the  memory  is  exer- 
cised in  quite  a  peculiar  manner.  It  then  carries  its 
burden  bit  by  bit,  and  very  little  at  once,  and  by  short 
efforts.  For  painting  away  from  nature  the  memory  re- 
quires a  totally  opposite  kind  of  training.  Its  business  is, 
then,  to  carry  a  whole  picture  for  long  together.  The 
vivid  recollection  of  particular  bits  is  of  no  use  when  we 
have  no  grasp  of  the  whole,  because  the  bits  are  quite 
unavailable  for  our  purposes  when  detached  from  their 
natural  relations.  But  the  equal  and  large  grasp  of  whole 
impressions,  even  though  the  details  may  be  by  no  means 
accurately  retained,  is  of  great  use  to  the  artist :  and 
it  is  this  kind  of  memory  which  pure  painting  from  nature 
has  such  a  fatal  tendency  to  debilitate.  Of  course  the 
intermediate  art  of  painting  from  memoranda  in  the  pres- 
ence of  nature  has  not  this  drawback  to  any  thing  like  the 
same  extent,  and  we  here  approach  more  nearly  to  the 
mental  training  necessary  for  those  men  who  work  entirely 
in  the  studio.  But  what  we  gain  in  one  direction  we  lose 
in  the  other ;  and  when  we  have  to  be  so  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  the  natural  scene  as  to  rely  upon  the  memory 
for  half  our  facts,  we  lose  much  of  that  salutary  and  severe 
discipline  of  eye  and  hand  which  is  to  be  derived  from  the 
resolute  imitation  of  things  that  will  stay  to  be  studied. 
Yet  I  would  always  advocate  the  largest  training  attain- 
able. It  seems  to  me  inexpressibly  narrow  and  unreason- 
able to  restrain  the  practice  even  of  our  younger  artists  to 


52  Painting  from  Nature. 

one  kind  of  work.  The  simple  imitation  of  nature  must 
precede,  but  ought  by  no  means  to  preclude,  the  exercise 
of  the  memory  and  the  practice  of  painting  as  a  fine  art, 
which  is  absolutely  impossible  so  long  as  we  are  held  down 
to  the  strictly  accurate  copyism  of  natural  detail.  I  am 
perfectly  willing  to  copy  with  patient  fidelity  one  month, 
but  I  may  want  to  paint  entirely  from  memory  the  next. 
It  is  an  inexpressible  relief  to  eyes  and  hands  jaded  with 
the  wearing  toil  of  mechanical  imitation  to  revel  in  the 
happy  elysium  of  the  memory,  and  realize  the  day  dreams 
of  invention ;  and  again,  it  is  often  a  salutary  and  refresh- 
ing change  to  turn  from  this  exciting  poetry  of  the  art  to 
the  brave  scientific  prose  of  the  most  determined  imitation. 
This  action  and  reaction  of  all  large  intellects  between  the 
real  and  the  ideal,  the  fact  and  the  dream,  is  so  universally 
necessary  to  their  healthful  life,  that  they  always  will  have 
it  somehow,  either  in  their  art  or  out  of  it.  James  Watt 
refreshed  himself  with  immense  doses  of  fiction,  and  Shel- 
ley braced  himself  with  mathematics.  The  painter  may 
find  the  two  elements  in  the  practice  of  his  own  all-em- 
bracing art,  and  alternate  between  the  labors  of  observa- 
tion and  the  pleasures  of  memory,  to  the  perplexity  of  his 
critics,  but  with  substantial  benefit  to  his  own  nature, 
Because  in  obedience  to  its  profoundest  laws. 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  53 


in. 


PAINTING  FROM    MEMO* 


new  ways  of  doing  things  become  fashionable, 
we  are  too  apt  to  consider  the  old  ways  altogether 
obsolete.  We  do  not  easily  see  at  first  that  the  new 
method  may  only  be  useful  for  the  production  of  a  certain 
limited  order  of  things,  and  that  the  old,  instead  of  being 
abolished  and  superseded  by  the  new,  may  be  destined  to 
endure  along  with  it,  and  live  for  ever  by  its  side. 

When  our  younger  painters  first  began  to  finish  their 
works  from  nature,  the  greater  part  of  them  believed,  in 
their  secret  hearts,  that  the  art  of  painting  from  memo- 
randa in  the  studio  was  thenceforth  doomed  to  extinction. 
They  did  not  perceive  that  this  other  art  rests  on  its  own 
grounds,  has  its  own  reasons  for  existing,  and  is  a  necessary 
result  of  certain  causes  in  nature  itself,  and  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  man,  which  causes  have  lost  none  of  their  force 
because  some  artists  have  taken  their  easels  out  of  doors. 

A  very  praiseworthy  act,  indeed,  it  is  to  take  one's  easel 
out  of  doors ;  but  if  we  fancy  that  by  so  doing  we  have 
altogether  abolished  the  studio,  and  substituted  for  it  a 
painting  tent,  I  think  we  are  going  a  great  deal  too  fast.  I 
hope  there  is  evidence  enough,  not  only  in  these  volumes, 
but  in  my  pictures  themselves,  that  I  have  worked  labori- 
ously from  nature ;  but  at  the  same  time  I  should  be  sorry 
to  have  it  inferred  that  I  do  not  appreciate  the  art  of  paint- 
ing away  from  nature,  in  the  studio,  and  from  memoranda. 
For,  as  it  seems  to  me,  there  are  a  great  many  very  good 
reasons  why  the  studio  ought  to  be  preserved,  even  by 
landscape  painters,  as  a  valuable  old  institution  which  we 
cannot  afford  to  sacrifice.  These  reasons  I  desire  to  state 
in  detail,  and  have  therefore  dedicated  the  present  chapter 
to  the  old  art  of  painting  from  memoranda. 


54  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

In  some  essential  respects  a  picture  painted  from  memo- 
randa is  likely  to  be  more  valuable  than  one  painted 
directly  from  nature.  It  may  not  be  so  accurately  imita- 
tive, but  it  is  likely  to  be  more  harmoniously  and  equally 
worked  out,  truer  in  effect,  and  better  in  technical  execu- 
tion. It  will  also  have  a  higher  value  as  an  intellectual 
product,  if  the  intellect  of  the  artist  be  of  a  sufficiently 
elevated  order,  to  make  it  desirable  that  its  presence  should 
be  visible  in  his  work. 

The  action  of  the  imagination  is  more  vigorous  when  the 
bodily  sight  is  occupied  by  no  real  scene.  Hence  imagina- 
tive painters  have  a  well-grounded  dislike  to  painting  any 
thing  more  than  mere  studies  from  nature.  For  to  a  great 
artist  tli€  imaginative  faculty  is  the  most  precious  of  all  his 
gifts,  and  he,  therefore,  instinctively  p]aces  himself  in  the 
conditions  most  favorable  to  its  free  and  happy  exercise. 
Those  conditions  are,  first,  complete  bodily  comfort,  and, 
secondly,  a  certain  restriction  of  space. .  A  good  room 
offers  both  the  comfort  and  the  restriction. 

It  is  needless  to  point  out  that,  however  imaginative  a 
great  artist  may  be,  he  is  also  intensely  observant.  When 
in  the  presence  of  glorious  natural  scenery,  it  is  not  the 
imaginative  part  of  him  which  works  best,  but  the  observ- 
ant. All  his  intellectual  power  is  then  concentrated  on  the 
faculty  of  observation  for  the  enrichment  of  his  memory. 
No  one  will  be  surprised  at  this  who  has  any  conception 
how  intensely  laborious  the  act  of  artistic  observation  really 
is.  I  shall  have  more  to  say  about  it  soon,  when  we  come 
to  the  cultivation  of  the  memory,  the  most  essential  part  of 
the  training  of  a  painter  from  memoranda :  for  the  present, 
it  is  enough  to  affirm  that  the  act  of  artistic  observation  is 
so  extremely  laborious,  as  to  absorb  fop*  the  time  nearly  all 
the  mental  energy  of  the  painter,  and  that  in  those  rare 
cases  where  the  imagination  does  really  work  in  the  pres- 
ence of  nature,  it  is  because  the  observant  faculty  is  not 
developed  to  its  full  power  and  activity. 

The  painter  from  memoranda,  therefore,  divides  his 
labors  into  two  distinct  portions.  In  working  from  nature, 
it  is  his  business  to  observe,  note  down,  and  accumulate  an 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  55 

immense  miscellany  of  natural  facts.  In  the  painting- 
room  his  imagination  governs  the  creation  of  works  of  art, 
in  obedience  to  the  laws  of  nature,  and  with  the  help  of 
memoranda  taken  from  nature. 

Another  reason  why  the  imagination  works  better  when 
it  is  shut  up  between  four  walls  is  this :  to  an  imaginative 
person  with  a  retentive  memory,  it  is  extremely  desirable 
that  all  his  ten  or  twenty  thousand  impressions  should  be 
equally  accessible  and  equally  unobtrusive  ;.  but  in  working 
from  nature,  the  last  impression  is  for  a  time  very  obtru- 
sive indeed,  and  puts  all  the  impressions  that  remain  in  the 
memory  into  a  state  of  temporary  eclipse.  This  is  very 
disagreeable  to  an  imaginative  painter,  because  he  likes  to 
have  equal  and  absolute  power  over  all  his  accumulated 
impressions,  so  as  to  realize  whichever  he  will,  and  retain  it 
without  interruption  from  other  causes,  until  it  is  realized. 
Now,  whatever  effect  you  choose  for  a  picture  which  you 
are  painting  from  nature,  you  may  be  quite  sure  that, 
long  before  you  have  •  finished  it,  some  other  effect  will 
present  itself  whose  glorious  presence  will  seem  to  you 
more  worthy  to  be  represented  than  your  fading  recollec- 
tion of  the  one  selected.  This  kind  of  interference  an 
imaginative  painter  instinctively  avoids,  and  when  he  shuts 
himself  up  in  a  room,  it  is  that  he  may  have  all  his  facts 
and  impressions  under  perfect  control,  and  protected  from 
the  intrusion  of  other  impressions  which  are  quite  foreign  to 
the  subject  he  intends  to  realize. 

In  all  this  there  is  no  distrust  of,  or  infidelity  towards, 
nature,  but  the  reverse.  There  is  an  acute  consciousness 
on  the  part  of  the  artist  of  his  own  too  great  sensitiveness 
to  new  impressions,  against  which  he  instinctively  protects 
himself  by  opaque  walls  of  masonry.  A  picture  painted 
from  nature,  in  the  strict  sense  of  copying,  tint  for  tint, 
exactly  what  the  painter  saw,  would  not  be  true,  but  mon- 
strous ;  for  it  would  consist  of  unrelated  fragments  of  dif- 
ferent effects,  associated  as  unprofitably  as  leaves  taken  at 
random  from  a  hundred  volumes  and  bound  together  in  one. 
Even  in  painting  from  nature,  as  I  have  shown  on  another 
page,  the  artist  has  to  remain  faithful  to  some  selected 


56  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

effect,  of  which  he  preserves  a  memorandum,  and  utterly 
to  refuse  and  reject  all  the  effects  which  come  after  it;  so 
that  he  does  not  really  copy  nature,  hue  for  hue,  but  paints 
from  a  memorandum,  or  from  memory,  aided  by  reference 
to  nature  for  certain  facts.  And  I  also  showed,  that  even 
these  facts  have  to  be  twice  transposed  before  they  can  be 
put  into  the  picture,  —  once  from  the  passing  effect  to  the 
one  selected,  which  usually  involves  a  complete  change  of 
color,  and  very  frequently  even  of  form ;  and  again  from 
the  natural  scale  of  light  to  the  pictorial  subdivided  scale, 
another  transposition  which  destroys  all  chance  of  real 
imitation.  If  to  these  transpositions  you  have  to  add  the 
changes  introduced  into  every  particle  of  the  natural  scene 
by  the  imagination  of  a  truly  creative  or  poetical  landscape 
painter,  does  it  not  seem  rather  doubtful  whether  there  can 
be  any  use  in  his  painting  from  nature  at  all?  Would  it 
not  be  mere  self-deception  on  his  part,  to  set  up  a  tent  on 
the  mountains,  under  pretext  of  painting  from  nature, 
when  every  thing  he  saw  had  to  be  transposed  three  several 
times  before  he  could  make  any  use  of  it  ? 

1.  From  the  effect  visible  at  the  moment  to  the  one 
selected  when  the  picture  was  begun. 

2.  From  the  natural  scale  of  light  to  the  pictorial  sub- 
divided scale. 

3.  From  the  natural  order  to  the  imaginative  composition. 

So  that,  after  all, 'there  is  not  such  a  very  wide  differ- 
ence between  a  picture  done  from  nature  and  one  done  in 
the  studio,  as  to  the  direct  copyism  of  facts.  For  if  you 
copy  facts  from  nature,  without  carefully  observing  at  least 
the  two  first  transpositions,  there  can  be  no  truth  in  your 
work  ;  and  if  you  do  not,  or  cannot,  add  the  third,  which 
revolutionizes  the  arrangement  of  every  particle,  your  picture 
will  have  slight  value  as  a  work  of  art.  And  between  a 
picture  painted  out  of  doors,  in  which  all  the  three  trans- 
positions were  accomplished  throughout  in  a  masterly- 
manner,  and  another  similar  picture,  done  in  the  studio 
by  the  help  of  abundant  memoranda',  for  the  facts  to  be 
transposed,  I  confess  I  see  very  little  difference  in  point  of 
authenticity.  The  superiority  in  technical  execution  is 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  57 

nearly  sure  to  be  on  the  side  of  the  studio  picture ;  and 
this  superiority  has  great  weight  with  artists,  especially 
witli  the  most  accomplished  ones. 

The  reasons  why  the  technical  superiority  is  likely  to  be 
found  in  the  studio  picture  are  the  physical  comfort  of  a 
large  studio,  its  perfect  preparation  of  means  of  all  kinds, 
and  the  absence  of  hurry  caused  by  the  permanence  of 
memoranda  in  comparison  with  the  transience  of  nature. 

I  have  so  often  insisted  o"n  the  importance  of  a  certain 
degree  of  physical  comfort  for  the  execution  of  a  delicate 
work  that  I  fear  the  reader  will  infer  that  I  am  unusually 
fond  of  personal  ease,  and  so  attribute  my  expression  of 
what  is  in  reality  a  universal  truth  to  my  own  individual 
softness  of  temperament  and  love  of  luxury.  How  far  I 
am  alone  in  this  feeling,  I  therefore  invite  the  reader 
impartially  to  consider. 

Of  all  the  occupations  of  men,  I  can  at  this  moment 
remember  none,  not  involving  some  considerable  degree  of 
bodily  movement  and  exercise,  which  the  persons  devoted 
to  them  are  in  the  habit  of  following  without  the  shelter 
of  some  kind  of  building.  Even  joiners  and  blacksmiths, 
whose  muscular  exertion  is  quite  sufficient  to  enable  them 
to  resist  cold,  are  in  the  habit  of  working  in  buildings  called 
forges  and  workshops.  And  of  all  the  trades  followed  in  a 
metropolis  like  London,  there  is  not  one  which  is  practiced 
in  the  open  air  when  there  is  the  ch*oice  of  practising  it 
under  cover.  The  reason  for  this  is,  that  the  open  air, 
however  pleasant  under  certain  circumstances,  —  as,  for 
instance,  to  sportsmen,  —  is  full  of  an  immense  variety 
of  small  annoyances  and  interruptions,  which  so  seriously 
hinder  most  kinds  of  labor,  that  the  workers,  in  self-defence, 
protect  themselves  by  walls  and  roofs,  and  actually  find  it 
more  profitable  in  the  long  run  to  pay  rent  for  a  building 
to  shelter  them  whilst  they  work  than  to  work  in  the  open 
air. 

The  annoyances  I  here  speak  of  are  all  but  unknown  to 
sportsmen ;  but  they  are  very  well  known  to  painters. 
When  in  vigorous  exercise  a  man  will  easily  resist  a  degree 
of  inclemency  in  the  weather  which  would  kill  him  if  he 


58  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

were  to  take  a  chair  and  sit  still  in  it  for  eight  or  ten  hours 
every  day.  I  have  ridden  on  horseback  and  pulled  in  a 
boat  in  every  conceivable  variety  of  bad  weather  without 
taking  the  least  harm ;  but  I  have  been  laid  up  fora  month 
in  consequence  of  a  few  hours'  imprudent  painting  from 
nature.  And  of  all  the  premature  deaths  of  landscape 
painters,  I  believe  that  a  large  percentage  might  be 
distinctly  traced  to  the  habit  of  painting  or  studying  in 
the  open  air. 

It  is  not,  however,  as  it  affects  the  health  and  longevity 
of  artists,  but  the  technical  perfection  of  their  work,  that 
we  have  at  present  to  consider  the  utility  of  the  studio.  It 
tends  to  technical  excellence  by  protecting  the  artist  from 
small  interruptions  and  annoyances. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  it  is  very  miserable  to  human 
nature  generally  to  be  out  of  doors  in  a  state  of  compul- 
sory quiescence.  There  is  always  something  to  plague 
one.  Either  it  is  too  hot,  or  it  is  too  cold,  or  there  are 
flies,  or  one  is  on  a  wasp's  nest,  or  it  rains,  or  the  sunshine 
dazzles  one's  eyes,  or  the  movement  of  the  water  wearies 
them,  or  some  other  such  little  misery  maddens  the  unfor- 
tunate student.  I  declare  no  man  has  any  business  to 
paint  from  nature  who  cannot  bear  to  be  bitten  by  gnats 
without  wincing.  The  artist  who  should  allow  himself  to 
be  disturbed  merely  because  a  gnat  was  regaling  itself  on 
his  blood  would  accomplish  little.  The  resolute  ones 
work  on  in  serene  calm  when  sucked  by  several  gnats  at 
once.  Practically,  however,  I  confess  that  there  are  limits 
to  this  endurance,  and  I  never  could  work  delicately  under 
the  stimulus  of  more  than  six  gnats  at  a  time. 

Painting  in  rain  and  wind  needs  great  courage  and 
patience.  I  have  drawn  sometimes  in  pencil  for  many 
hours  together  in  pouring  rain,  with  the  water  streaming 
all  over  my  study  as  it  does  over  the  roof  of  a  house  ;  but 
neither  the  study  nor  myself  was  in  any  way  benefited 
by  the  rain.  A  friend  of  mine,  a  resolute  painter  from 
nature,  tells  me  that  he  never  allows  moderate  rain  to 
stop  him,  even  though  it  falls  on  the  canvass  itself.  Still, 
drops  of  water  do  no  good  to  a  carefully  laid  surface  of 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  59 

oil-color,  and  rain  is  a  real  hindrance  to  the  art  of  painting. 
Then  there  are  the  extremes  of  heat  and  cold,  the  burning 
glare  of  Oriental  suns,  the  icy  blast  of  a  Highland  winter, 
all  to  be  borne  patiently,  if  such  subjects  are  to  be  painted 
from  nature.  There  are  some  sketches  and  studies  which 
no  painter  can  look  at  without  a  sensation  of  awe  at  the 
endurance  they  prove,  like  what  other  people  feel  when 
they  read  of  some  terrible  military  retreat  or  arctic  ex- 
ploratory expedition.  Gentlemen  who  follow  painting 
merely  as  a  polite  amusement,  and  lay  it  aside  whenever 
it  becomes  arduous  or  unpleasant,  have  little  conception 
of  the  infinite  energy  and  resolution  of  mind,  and  firm 
bodily  endurance,  which  those  men  need  who  have  to  live 
by  their  art  and  really  face  its  hardships.  Against  some 
of  these  hardships  I  am  happy  to  think  that  my  studio 
tent  is  an  effectual  protection.  Henceforth  neither  wind 
nor  rain  nor  frost  need  vex  the  landscape  painter  any 
more. 

But  a  studio  tent,  comfortable  as  it  is  in  comparison 
with  the  open  air,  is  very  inferior  to  such  a  painting  room 
as  mine.  My  tent  is  eight  feet  square,  and  although  its 
pyramidal  roof  rises  to  a  height  of  fourteen  feet  from  the 
ground,  its  walls  rise  only  to  eight  feet.  But  my  studio  is 
about  twenty-seven  feet  long,  by  nineteen  wide,  and  fif- 
teen high.  Now  the  tent  will  no  doubt  contain  materials 
for  the  execution  of  a  small  picture,  and  even,  by  remov- 
ing the  central  pole,  a  picture  six  feet  long  might  be  painted 
in  it,  but  the  space  is  still  very  inconveniently  restricted 
in  comparison  with  that  afforded  by  the  studio.  If  I  were 
painting  rather  a  large  picture  in  the  tent,  I  could  not 
get  back  far  enough  to  see  the  relations  of  the  masses  of 
color ;  and  although,  no  doubt,  an  accomplished  artist  can, 
in  a  great  degree,  guess  at  the  effect  of  what  he  is  doing, 
and  paint  without  having  the  opportunity  of  seeing  what 
he  is  painting,  nevertheless,  we  all  like  to  assure  ourselves 
from  time  to  time  that  the  relative  weight  of  the  color 
in  different  parts  of  the  picture  has  been  rightly  deter- 
mined. And  for  practical  convenience,  in  following  out 
the  different  processes  of  painting  to  a  successful  and 


60  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

complete  result,  especially  if  the  work  be  on  a  large  scale, 
a  great  deal  of  space  is  extremely  desirable.  I  find  my 
studio,  spacious  as  it  is,  only  just  large  enough  ;  and  if 
ever  I  build  one  on  ground  of  my  own,  it  shall  be  a  yard 
longer  and  a  yard  wider.  The  comfort  of  a  great  studio 
is  most  conducive  to  technical  excellence.  A  substantial 
oak  easel,  heavy  and  firm,  with  a  screw  to  raise  and  lower 
the  picture  without  disturbing  it,  and  wheels  to  move  the 
whole  into  precisely  the  best  light ;  a  large  painting-table, 
with  one  or  more  great  drawers,  neatly  divided  with  parti- 
tions for  colors ;  shelves  with  every  thing  that  can  possibly 
be  wanted  at  any  stage  of  the  work,  always  at  hand,  and 
in  perfect  order ;  all  these  things  are  helps  which  no  wise 
man  despises,  for  they  make  good  and  beautiful  workman- 
ship easier  and  pleasanter  to  him.  And  the  absence  of 
hurry  in  studio  work  is  another  great  advantage.  In 
painting  from  nature,  you  must  work  rapidly,  and  you 
cannot  well  undertake  more  than  one  picture  at  a  time. 
For  although  it  is  quite  useless  to  think  of  painting  tran- 
sient color  from  nature,  we  refer  to  nature  for  local  color, 
or  else,  I  suppose,  there  would  be  no  use  in  painting  from 
nature  at  all.  And  the  changes  in  local  color  occasioned 
by  the  ceaseless  advance  of  vegetation  are  so  great,  so 
revolutionary,  that  it  is  of  little  use  undertaking  any  work 
from  nature  which  will  occupy  us  more  than  a  month. 
Now  a  month  is  not  enough  for  a  picture  which  is  solidly 
painted,  if  all  its  processes  are  to  be  very  carefully  followed, 
with  sufficient  intervals  for  drying.  At  least  three  months 
are  necessary  for  the  fair  construction  of  an  oil-picture  in 
which  impasto  is  employed,  if  we  allow  the  right  time  for 
drying,  paint  soundly,  and  do  not  use  perilous  driers. 
Now,  in  the  studio,  there  is  no  occasion  for  any  hurry, 
at  all.  Your  memoranda  will  be  just  the  same  three 
months  hence,  and  you  may  as  well  have  three  or  four 
pictures  going  on  together,  letting  each  dry  as  long  as  is 
necessary.  In  the  modern  way  of  using  opaque  color,  and 
obtaining  texture  by  leaving  various  kinds  of  surface  for 
the  subsequent  reception  of  transparent  films,  it  is  fre- 
quently necessary  that  certain  parts  of  the  ground-colors 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  61 

should  retain  the  rough  marks  of  the  brush,  whilst  in  other 
parts  these  marks  must,  be  carefully  scraped  away,  so  as 
to  leave  a  surface  as  smooth  as  polished  ivory.  This 
scraping,  on  color  not  perfectly  dry,  is  quite  impossible ; 
and  even  in  the  height  of  summer  the  thicker  parts  of  a 
ground-color  will  take  a  fortnight  to  harden  enough  to  be 
fit  for  the  scraper.  Many  of  these  minor  artifices,  which 
contribute  so  much  to  the  effect  of  a  picture,  have  to  be 
omitted  in  work  done  directly  from  nature ;  and  hence  the 
common  assertion  of  French  critics  like  Ferdinand  de 
Lasteyrie,  that  we  English  do  not  understand  the  tech- 
nical art  of  painting,  —  an  accusation  for  which  there  is 
this  degree  of  foundation,  that  in  our  works  from  nature 
we  are  often  obliged  to  neglect  a  variety  of  useful  and 
cunning  little  expedients  which  lend  a  great  charm  to  the 
best  studio  pictures.  And  it  does,  indeed,  seem  very  possi- 
ble that  in  a  school  like  ours,  where  the  custom  of  working 
from  nature  is  extremely  prevalent,  the  artist  craft  is  in 
some  danger  of  being  neglected  and  lost  for  mere  want 
of  the  leisure  and  convenience  necessary  to  its  elaborate 
exercise.  There  is  a  continual  temptation,  in  working 
from  nature,  to  abridge  the  orderly  succession  of  proces- 
ses, and  do  too  much  at  a  time.  No  doubt  a  very  ac- 
complished artist  may,  if  he  pleases,  finish  a  few  square 
inches  of  his  picture  when  he  has  the  chance  of  doing  it 
from  nature  —  I  mean,  when  the  effect  of  the  moment  in 
some  degree  resembles  the  effect  originally  selected  for 
the  work — but  it  is  extremely  dangerous  for  all  ordinary 
painters  to  yield  to  any  such  temptation.  For  them  there 
is  no  safety  but  in  the  orderly  and  calm  division  of  the 
business  to  be  done. 

Memoranda  for  pictures  may  be  accumulated  in  two 
ways.  Either  the  artist  accumulates  memoranda  of  natural 
facts  and  phenomena  with  no  other  intention  than  to  pro- 
vide himself  with  a  kind  of  encyclopaedia  for  general 
reference,  or  he  goes  to  nature  with  the  direct  intention 
of  obtaining  memoranda  for  a  particular  picture.  The 
first  method  has  the  advantage  of  keeping  his  attention 
so  continually  alive,  that  no  natural  fact  can  possibly  come 


62  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

amiss  to  him ;  and  an  artist  of  this  universally  accumu- 
lative character,  although  his  particular  works  may  not 
present  any  striking  imitative  truth,  is  sure  to  know  a 
great  deal  more  about  nature  than  artists  who  work  only 
with  reference  to  some  picture  they  have  resolved  to 
paint.  This  was  Turner's  way  of  accumulating  memoranda, 
and  no  doubt  a  very  good  way  it  is,  but  it  has  a  defect 
which  I  must  here  indicate. 

The  evil  of  it  is,  that  although  your  memoranda  may 
be  in  the  aggregate  very  voluminous,  they  rarely  afford, 
when  taken  in  this  desultory  manner,  all  the  information 
you  desire  when  you  come  to  consult  them  with  reference 
to  some  particular  work.  They  fail  to  inform  you  about 
some  fact  which  you  find  to  be  indispensably  necessary; 
and  the  want  of  authentic  information  on  such  points 
tends  to  a  general  weakness  of  statement  in  your  whole 
picture ;  for  although  you  may  state  some  facts  with  per- 
fect certainty,  you  feel  so  uncertain  about  others  that  you 
dare  not  enter  very  far  into  detail  anywhere.  I  believe 
that  this  simple  consideration  explains  the  vagueness  of 
assertion  so  common  in  Turner's  foregrounds.  It  may  be 
possible  in  one  or  two  of  his  more  carefully  studied  fore- 
grounds to  discover  a  few  plants  and  leaves  about  which 
there  is  something  approaching  to  a  definite  though  still 
very  mannered  statement  ;  and  a  critic  whose  object 
was  to  exalt  Turner,  and  not  to  teach  truth,  might,  no 
doubt,  from  the  immense  mass  of  his  works,  point  to  a 
few  such  details  as  a  proof  that  Turner's  observation  ex- 
tended to  them  ;  but  the  real  fact  is,  that  Turner  hardly 
ever  painted  either  trees  or  foregrounds  in  any  but  the 
shallowest  manner,  all  his  interest  being  concentrated  in 
the  distance,  and  in  effects  of  atmosphere  and  water.  Les- 
lie's criticism,  "  I  look  in  vain  for  a  specific  discrimina- 
tion in  his  trees,  or  in  the  vegetation  of  his  foregrounds," 
is  perfectly  well  founded,  Turner's  vegetation  being  gen- 
erally weak  and  unmeaning ;  nor  would  it  be  possible 
out  of  the  innumerable  works  he  left  behind  him  to  ex- 
tract any  thing  like  a  complete  illustration  of  the  prin- 
cipal English  and  French  trees,  though  he  devoted  two 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  63 

distinct  series  of  works  to  the  scenery  of  England  and 
France.  The  reasons  for  this  weakness  appear  to  have 
been,  first,  his  youthful  deference  to  elder  masters,  who 
lived  in  days  when  landscape  was  considered  so  far  beneath 
the  attention  of  a  true  student  that  trees  were  not  thought 
to  be  worthy  of  serious  study,  and  were  seldom  specifically 
rendered ;  and,  secondly,  his  own  system  of  memoranda, 
which  was  better  fitted  for  dealing  with  sudden  effects  of 
light  than  the  elaborate  details  of  botanical  structure.  In 
considering  his  system  of  memoranda,  we  are  therefore  to 
bear  in  mind  that  it  was  invented  and  employed  by  a 
painter  whose  great  object  was  to  paint  remote  distances, 
and  to  whom  foreground  detail  was  a  matter  of  secondary 
importance  ;  and  we  are  only  to  imitate  it  so  far  as  we 
ourselves  attempt  to  deal  with  effects  in  the  sky  and  dis- 
tance. 

So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  examine  Turner's  memo- 
randa, I  should  say  that  those  of  the  sky  are  nearly  all  that 
it  was  possible  to  obtain  in  the  time,  whilst  the  memoranda 
of  mountains  and  trees  were  generally  much  slighter  than 
they  might  have  been  if  the  painter  had  cared  to  have 
them  elaborate.  Being,  however,  accustomed  to  charge  his 
memory  with  infinite  details  of  cloud  structure,  it  is  natural 
that  Turner  should  have  relied  upon  it  for  every  thing  else 
to  the  same  extent.  Still  I  see  no  reason  why  we  should 
not  get  abundant  memoranda  of  things  that  will  stay  to  be 
studied,  merely  because  we  are  forced  to  content  ourselves 
with  slight  notes  of  transient  things  ;  and  I  look  upon 
Turner's  whole  system  as  rather  a  result  of  habit  than 
reflection.  As  a  painter  pre-eminently  of  skies  and  dis- 
tances, he  had  acquired  the  habit  of  working  almost  entirely 
from  memory,  aided  by  the  very  slightest  notes,  and  he 
carried  the  same  habit  into  the  foreground.  In  deliberately 
reasoning  out  a  system  of  memoranda,  we  are,  however, 
to  remember  that  we  are  not  all  of  us  Turners,  and  cannot, 
like  him,  get  weak  foregrounds  forgiven  for  the  sake  of 
glorious  skies  and  illimitable  distances. 

Thus  of  the  memoranda  by  Turner,  given  in  the  fourth 
chapter  of  the  fifth  volume  of  "  Modern  Painters,"  the 


64  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

slight  notes  of  a  sunrise  at  page  187  (first  edition)  are 
nearly  all  that  could  have  been  obtained  in  the  time  ; 
whereas  the  sketch  of  Lausanne,  opposite  page  189,  is 
merely  the  jotting  down  of  an  idea,  not  by  any  means  a 
study  of  the  place.  All  this  was  perfectly  right  for 
Turner ;  and  the  longer  I  live  the  more  I  perceive  that 
every  artist  finds  "out  the  natural  expression  of  his  own 
talent ;  and  that  all  the  assertions  of  critics  that  artists 
ought  to  have  done  this  thing  or  that,  which  they  did  not 
do,  are  quite  Idle  and  illusory.  Nevertheless,  another 
artist  who  is  not  Turner  will  find  it  no  advantage  to  him  to 
imitate  Turner's  way  of  study,  which  was  adapted  only  to 
his  peculiar  genius ;  and  I  desire  to  point  out  the  bad  con- 
sequences in  Turner's  own  work  of  the  extreme  slightness 
of  his  foreground  memoranda.  Either  his  memory  was 
not  strong  enough  to  carry  the  specific  characteristics  of 
the  different  kinds  of  trees  and  plants,  or  he  despised  these 
orders  of  truths  and  rejected  them  on  system.  It  is  prob- 
able that  his  peculiar  genius  felt  little  attraction  to  the 
truths  he  habitually  neglected;  but  if  we  desire  to  rep- 
resent those  truths  we  cannot  content  ourselves  with 
memoranda  as  slight  as  his,  since  his  pictures  in  this 
respect  afford  so  little  encouragement  to  a  reliance  on  the 
memory. 

In  speaking  of  Turner's  memoranda  of  skies,  I  said 
that  they  were  nearly  all  that  could  be  got  in  the  time. 
They  are  all  that  can  be  got  in  the  way  of  form,  which, 
unfortunately,  is  always  very  little  indeed  ;  but  I  think  a 
closer  and  more  accurate  notation  of  color  might  be  at- 
tempted with  advantage,  and  I  have  myself  elaborated 
such  a  system,  which  I  find  practically  not  more  cumber- 
some than  Turner's,  quite  as  rapid,  and  more  likely  to  be 
generally  useful.  Thus,  for  instance,  in  the  notes  of  a  sun- 
rise given  by  Mr.  Ruskin,  it  was  a  great  waste  of  time  to 
write  the  words  "  yellow,"  "  red,"  "  cold,"  "  purple,"  and 
"  gray  "  in  full,  because  the  colors  might  have  been  far 
more  accurately  indicated,  and  in  the  same  space  of  time, 
by  carefully  invented  signs.  Turner,  however,  relied 
always  very  much  upon  his  memory  and  invention ;  he 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  65 

even  relied  upon  them  too  much,  as  strong  men  usually 
trust  their  constitutions  too  far.  And,  therefore,  Turner's 
object  in  taking  a  memorandum  was  probably  nothing  more 
than  this,  to  direct  him  to  that  particular  little  corner  of 
his  immense  storehouse,  where  the  whole  scene  was  sure  to 
be  found  whenever  he  might  have  occasion  for  it.  And  if 
this  were  so,  it  was  unnecessary  for  Turner  to  attempt  any 
discrimination  as  to  the  sort  of  "  red,"  "  yellow,"  "  purple," 
&c.,  which  he  saw  about  the  sun,  because,  the  exact  tints 
would  be  easily  found  whenever  he  chose  to  look  for  them 
in  his  own  mind. 

I  do  not  say  that  this  was  so  quite  to  this  extent. 
Turner's  invention  was  inexhaustible,  but  there  is  no  real 
evidence  that  his  memory  was  very  accurately  retentive. 
His  habit  of  altering  every  thing  that  he  drew  makes  it 
exceedingly  difficult  to  convict  him  of  definite  error  in  a 
matter  requiring  an  effort  of  the  memory,  because  if  very 
incorrect  drawings  of  his  were  produced  to  prove  that  his 
memory  was  not  infallible,  Mr.  Ruskin  would  immediately 
reply  with  his  ingenious  theory  of  Turnerian  topography, 
which  was  devised  to  meet  all  such  emergencies.  His 
memory  may  have  been  very  accurate,  but  there  is  really 
no  evidence  of  the  fact ;  for  although  he  often  drew  from 
memory,  he  never  drew  any  thing  accurately.  I  myself  do 
not  believe  that  Turner's  memory  was  not  capable  of  carry- 
ing much  more  than  the  mere  suggestions  of  his  inventions  ; 
and  I  think  that  it  was  a  matter  of  comparatively  little 
consequence  to  Turner  what  the  precise  tint  of  red  or 
yellow  about  the  sun  may  have  been  on  that  particular 
morning,  seeing  that  in  any  picture,  where  the  fact  might 
afterwards  be  stated,  he  would  certainly  modify  those  hues 
with  a  true  composer's  sense  of  their  relation  to  all  the 
other  hues  in  every  other  part  of  his  picture. 

In  arranging  any  complete  system  of  memoranda,  we 
are,  therefore,  to  know  what  it  is  that  we  propose  to  our- 
selves, how  far  we  intend  to  imitate  nature,  and  how  far  to 
rely  upon  the  memory.  It  is  possible  to  obtain  memo- 
randa so  full  of  information  that  a  picture  painted  from 
them  will  look  as  if  it  were  painted  directly  from  nature. 

5 


66  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

It  is,  of  course,  also  possible  to  take  memoranda  so  exceed- 
ingly slight  that  they  will  convey  no  more  than  a  mere 
suggestion,  and  leave-  the  filling  up  of  every  detail  to  the 
memory  and  invention  of  the  painter.  Between  these  two 
extremes  of  fulness  and  slightness  lie  an  infinite  variety  of 
systems ;  every  painter  who  works  much  in  the  studio 
having  a  way  of  gathering  his  materials  in  some  degree 
peculiar  to  himself. 

In  offering  a  detailed  explanation  of  my  own  system 
of  memoranda,  I  wish  the  reader  to  observe  that  it  is 
adapted  to  my  own  wants,  and  would  probably  have  to  be 
modified  before  it  could  be  as  useful  to  any  other  artist. 
Still  it  is  more  likely  to  be  of  general  use  than  Turner's 
plan,  which  relied  entirely  upon  invention,  and  which, 
therefore,  can  be  of  little  use  to  painters  who  have  no  in- 
vention to  rely  upon. 

Memoranda  may  be  made  to  serve  a  double  purpose, 
the  education  of  the  artist  and  the  collecting  of  materials 
for  pictures.  Of  the  two  purposes,  the  first  is  never  to  be 
lost  sight  of,  and  the  second  ought  always  to  be  kept  in 
subordination  to  it.  An  artist's  first  purpose  should  al- 
ways be  to  train  himself  to  perfect  power,  not  to  produce 
this  or  that  agreeable  picture.  If  we  want  good  figs  we 
must  look  to  the  fig-tree,  not  to  this  or  that  particular  fig. 
A  thoroughly  trained  artist  cannot  paint  quite  worthless 
pictures  unless  he  accepts  some  vicious  and  destructive 
principles ;  but  a  partially  trained  one  will  generally  ruin 
really  good  work  by  putting  some  unlucky  bit  of  weak 
work  in  the  same  canvass.  When  I  planned  my  system 
of  memoranda,  I  therefore  determined  that  it  should  in- 
clude in  itself  a  complete  curriculum  of  study,  —  a  reg- 
ular, steady  training  in  all  the  hard  work  of  painting,  such 
as  I  should  put  a  pupil  through  who  wanted  to  be  a  great 
artist.  The  consequence  of  this  is,  that  whenever  I  go  to 
nature  for  materials  for  a  picture,  I  refresh  myself  with  a 
course  of  elementary  lessons,  and  so  go  to  school  again 
from  time  to  time,  with  great  advantage  to  myself,  and, 
consequently,  to  every  picture  I  paint. 

The  other  and  immediate,  yet  secondary,  purpose  of 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  67 

getting  materials  for  particular  works  has  also  to  be  care- 
fully provided  for.  We  are  not  to  set  out  with  the  idea 
that  we  are  great  inventors  who  need  only  the  very 
slightest  hints  and  suggestions  to  produce  wonderful  pic- 
tures ;  but  rather  to  underrate  than  overestimate  our 
inventive  powers,  and  to  trust  our  memory  very  little 
though  we  train  it  sternly  and  steadily.  We  are  to  get 
all  the  facts  that  can  possibly  be  got  directly  from  nature. 
We  need  not  go  and  paint  from  memory  in  the  presence 
of  nature ;  but  we  must  get  every  fact  as  elaborately  as  its 
own  degree  of  permanence  will  admit  of.  We  cannot 
really  draw  the  clouds  in  a  sky,  so  we  must  be  satisfied 
with  a  sketch  of  their  arrangement,  aided  by  shorthand 
notes  for  color  ;  but  we  can  draw  the  principal  forms  of 
a  mountain  with  tolerable  accuracy,  and  we  are  therefore 
to  do  so.  On  the  other  hand,  we  cannot  get  transient 
color  from  nature  ;  but  we  may  get  a  careful  study  in  oil 
or  water-color  of  local  color,  which  we  are  therefore  to  try 
for.  The  golden  rule  is  to  get  from  nature  whatever 
nature's  transience  will  allow  us  fairly  to  obtain. 

The  secret  of  success  in  this  is  separation  of  aim.  It  is 
a  bad  and  lazy  plan  to  try  for  every  thing  in  the  same 
study.  The  right  way  is  to  take  a  series  of  studies  each 
with  its  own  object :  one  for  form,  severe  and  delicate ; 
another  for  local  color,  in  which  all  the  patches  of  differ- 
ent hues  are  carefully  mapped  ont  and  set  down  in  water- 
color  ;  a  third  for  light  and  shade,  this  one  mainly  for  the 
forms  of  shadows,  a  most  desirable  kind  of  truth  ;  a  fourth 
for  transient  form  and  color,  this  one  being  a  very  hasty 
pencil  memorandum  with  shorthand  notes  ;  a  fifth  being  a 
rapid  attempt  to  realize  the  effect  in  water-color,  whilst 
the  impression  of  it  remains  quite  fresh  in  the  memory. 
To  these  five  studies  a  set  of  half  a  dozen  collodion  pho- 
tographs may  be  added  with  advantage,  if  their  exposure 
is  strictly  regulated  according  to  the  particular  kind  of 
detail  the  artist  requires.  The  photographs  are  especially 
useful  for  reference  as  to  texture,  which  collodion  renders 
perfectly,  and  which  none  of  the  other  memoranda  can 
render  at  all,  unless  those  in  water-color,  at  the  cost  of 


68  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

infinite  labor.  But  the  collodion  photographs  do  not  by 
any  means  do  away  with  the  necessity  for  the  severe  form- 
study.  I  cannot  stay  here  to  explain  why  photographs 
are  of  little  use  to  landscape  painters  as  records  of  form ; 
but  the  reader  will  find  the  whole  subject  investigated  in 
the  chapter  on  the  relation  of  photography  to  painting. 

We  have,  therefore,  arrived  at  three  fundamental  prin- 
ciples, which  we  will  recapitulate  here  to  clear  up  our 
ideas  on  the  subject. 

FIRST    PRINCIPLE. 

The  gathering  of  the  memoranda  ought  to  be  so  ar- 
ranged as  to  constitute  in  itself  a  complete  course  of 
artistic  training. 

SECOND    PRINCIPLE. 

In  noting  down  facts  from  nature,  we  are  to  regulate 
the  degree  of  elaboration  in  our  notes  by  the  degree  of 
permanence  in  the  thing  to  be  studied,  doing  our  lest  to 
get  the  utmost  amount  of  truth  possible  to  us  under  the 
circumstances,  not  sketching  permanent  things  carelessly 
because  we  cannot  study  transient  things  deliberately. 

THIRD    PRINCIPLE. 

We  are  to  separate  our  aim  as  far  as  possible,  giving 
one  study  to  form,  another  to  local  color,  a  third  to  light 
and  shade,  a  fourth  to  transient  form  and  color,  a  fifth  to 
realize  the  impression  noted  down  hastily  in  the  fourth,  to 
all  which  may  be  added  a  set  of  collodion  photographs  for 
information  about  texture,  which  there  is  scarcely  time 
enough  to  get  in  the  other  studies. 

To  these  three  principles  a  fourth  may  be  added  with 
reference  to  the  memory. 

We  are  to  cultivate  the  memory  separately,  subjecting  it 
to  a  peculiar  training  of  its  own  ;  but  we  are  to  rely  upon 
it  as  little  as  possible  in  obtaining  memoranda  from  nature, 
because  then  our  object  ought  to  be  the  accumulation  of 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  69 

authentic  facts.  I  will  endeavor  to  explain  how  the 
memory  may  best  be  cultivated  when  we  have  done  with 
the  subject  of  memoranda.  First  let  us  examine  the  pro- 
posed series  of  studies,  and  whilst  we  are  doing  so  I  beg 
the  reader  to  understand  that  I  am  not  proposing  a  pos- 
sible series  of  memoranda  which  I  have  not  practically 
tried  ;  but  a  series  which  already  exists  abundantly  in  my 
portfolios,  which  I  habitually  repeat  when  I  require  ma- 
terials for  a  new  picture,  and  which  I  rely  upon  for  all 
my  largest  and  most  important  works. 

FIRST    STUDY. FORM. 

A  careful  pen-drawing,  the  full  size  of  the  intended  pic- 
ture, and  noting  firmly  every  detail  of  form  that  can  be 
got  without  shading.  As  this  is  a  mere  memorandum 
after  all,  and  not  intended  to  be  sold  or  engraved,  or  looked 
at  by  anybody  but  the  painter,  there  is  no  attempt  to 
express  distance  in  it,  nor  to  make  it  look  pretty,  nor  to 
subordinate  one  fact  in  order  to  give  importance  to  another. 
The  thing  is  a  plain,  downright  statement  of  hard  facts  of 
form,  not  a  pretty,  plausible  drawing.  How  far  it  is  to  be 
an  accurate  transcript  of  the  natural  scene  depends  entirely 
upon  the  artist.  The  masses  are  to  be  arranged  exactly  as 
they  will  be  in  the  picture.  My  own  practice  is  to  alter 
as  little  as  I  possibly  can  ;  and  I  select  only  'the  very  best 
natural  compositions,  in  order  that  I  may  be  able  to  make 
use  of  nature's  own  composition  without  much  adaptation 
to  my  own  purposes.  Still,  we  are  not  to  be  illiberally 
severe  on  the  question  of  accuracy.  The  object  .of  the 
artist  is  to  give  as  faithful  an  impression  as  he  can  of  the 
whole  natural  scene,  and  sometimes  this  is  best  done  by 
considerably  altering  the  natural  arrangement.  We  are 
to  bear  in  mind  that  the  natural  world  was  not  intended 
only  to  be  painted,  but  to  be  inhabited  by  living  men  ; 
and  the  physiological  fact  that  the  vertebrae  of  the  neck 
allow  the  head  to  turn  from  side  to  side,  and  that  the  eyes 
move  in  their  sockets,  is  proof  enough  that  men  were  not 
intended  to  look  at  nature  as  a  militia-man  does  when  the 


70  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

drill-sergeant  gives  the  word,  "  Eyes  right."  Wherefore, 
since  we  are  intended  to  look  freely  around  us,  and  to 
gather  oar  impressions  of  natural  scenery  from  every  point 
of  the  compass,  there  is  really  no  reason  why  an  artist 
should  not  do  so  too,  if  his  purpose  is  to  convey  to  us  an 
idea  of  the  place  he  is  illustrating.  I  think,  however,  that 
this  form-study  ought  to  contain  the  whole  subject,  defini- 
tively composed,  as  we  intend  it  to  be  in  the  completed 
picture ;  because,  any  subsequent  changes  in  the  studio 
would  have  to  be  done  without  that  reference  to  nature, 
which  is  so  easy  whilst  we  are  making  the  study.  My 
form-studies  of  this  kind  are  always  definitively  arranged, 
and  I  do  not  change  so  much  as  a  leaf  in  painting  from 
them  afterwards. 

I  draw  these  studies  in  ink,  and  with  Gillott's  little 
lithographic  steel  pens.  I  find  it  takes  me  a  week  to  do 
a  large  one,  if  I  work  very  hard,  but  then  I  draw  them 
very  delicately.  The  continual  study  of  hard  form,  that 
this  kind  of  memorandum  compels  a  painter  to  go  through, 
lays  a  very  valuable  foundation  for  subsequent  color  work. 
In  studies  of  this  kind,  there  is  no  avoiding  the  form,  no 
easy  hiding  of  mountains  in  mist,  no  pleasant  avoiding  of 
hard  foreground-drawing  by  dexterous  and  attractive  man- 
ipulation. I  do  not  admit  either  cloud  or  shadow  any- 
where in  these  drawings  :  when  I^undertake  to  draw  a 
mountain,  I  must  do  it  from  foot  to  crest,  every  inch  of 
it,  no  friendly  mist  being  ever  allowed  to  intervene.  Then 
the  drawing  is  to  be  filled  as  full  of  details  as  it  possibly 
can,  every  such  detail  being  a  clear  statement  of  some 
fact  of  form.  And  all  the  forms  are  to  be  studied  as  closely 
as  a  sculptor  studies  the  most  precious  curves  of  a  maiden's 
limbs,  the  very  faintest  swellings  of  the  mountain's  lines 
being  tenderly  imitated  by  the  fine  little  steel  instrument, 
and  exaggerated  as  little  as  may  be. 

Work  of  this  kind  is  good  discipline  in  forms ;  but  if  it 
were  too  exclusively  followed,  we  should  not  become  paint- 
ers, only  delicate  topographical  draughtsmen.  For  all  such 
work  is  more  definite  than  nature,  and  not  half  mysterious 
enough.  There  are  a  thousand  facts  which,  if  stated  at 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  71 

all  in  such  drawing,  are  sure  to  be  stated  too  definitely, 
and  still  they  must  be  stated  nevertheless.  Hence  a  young 
painter  who  relied  too  much  on  memoranda  of  this  kind 
would  end  by  sacrificing  gradation  and  mystery  to  a  morbid 
clearness,  and,  however  full  of  detail  his  work  might  be,  it 
would  always  seem  less  rich,  than  slighter  work  in  which 
gradation  and  mystery  were  fully  felt  and  expressed.  The 
perfection  of  his  mere  drawing  would  be  of  little  use  in  his 
painting,  unless  accompanied  by  other  and  more  subtle 
qualities,  and  he  would  experience  the  common  disappoint- 
ment of  accomplished  draughtsmen,  who  too  frequently 
imagine  that,  as  they  can  draw  better  than  some  painters, 
and  as  drawing  is  the  basis  of  painting,  they  must  also  be 
able  to  paint  better.  In  affirming  the  utility  of  this  kind 
of  work,  I  am  bound  to  add  this  warning,  that  if  too 
exclusively  persisted  in  it  leads  to  three  great  vices :  the 
first,  want  of  gradation  ;  the  second,  over-definition ;  the 
third,  want  of  mystery  and  infinity. 

SECOND    STUDY. LOCAL    COLOR. 

Generally  rather  a  difficult  study  to  obtain,  because  the 
local  color  has  to  be  seen  through,  and  in  spite  of  the 
transient  color,  and  noted  down  in  the  manner  of  an 
abstract.  It  is  a  map  of  the  distribution  of  local  color 
in  the  picture,  and  should  be  done  the  full  size  of  the  form- 
study.  It  saves  time  to  trace  the  principal  forms  from  the 
first  study.  The  patches  of  local  color  should  be  very 
carefully  mapped  out.  If  you  are  going  to  paint  an  oil- 
picture,  this  study  ought,  to  be  done  in  oil,  using  thin 
opaque  color  laid  on  like  mosaic,  in  patches  fitted  carefully 
together.  The  whole  study  may  be  done  in  a  single  pro- 
cess if  it  is  properly  managed,  but  two  processes  will  do  it 
better  justice.  I  learned  the  importance  of  this  kind  of 
study  from  the  Highland  hills,  many  of  which  are  all 
patched  over  with  a  variegated  local  coloring  of  the  rich- 
est greens  and  purples,  whilst  others  are  covered  with  a 
network  of  fern,  which  turns  to  a  deep  red  in  autumn.  I 
found  that  mere  careless  color-sketching  was  not  enough 


72  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

for  such  elaborate  designs  of  local  color,  and  set  myself  to 
obtain  more  complete  memoranda  of  it.  Very  hideous 
things  these  memoranda  look  when  they  are  finished,  hav- 
ing neither  light  nor  shade,  nor  transient  hues,  whilst  the 
mapped  colors  obliterate  the  beauty  of  the  forms.  Still, 
these  studies  are  extremely  useful,  and  I  earnestly  recom- 
mend the  artistic  reader  not  to  undervalue  them.  One  is 
always  wanting  to  learn  some  fact  about  local  color  when 
painting  in  a  studio.  As  I  have  already  shown,  the  prin- 
cipal reason  why  painters  ever  work  from  nature  is  pre- 
cisely that  they  may  have  the  continual  opportunity  of 
reference  for  local  color.  Form  they  could  get  from  form- 
studies  :  transient  color  is  never  to  be  painted  from  nature 
at  all ;  but  every  artist  knows  that  the  one  great  point  of 
superiority,  in  pictures  done  from  the  scene  itself,  is  the 
truth  and  variety  of  local  color.  Hence,  if  we  would  not 
have  our  studio  pictures  inferior  in  this  respect  to  pictures 
done  directly  from  nature,  we  are  to  map  out  local  colors 
with  much  diligence  and  care. 

THIRD     STUDY. SHADOWS. 

The  groundwork  for  this  study,  —  that  is,  a  sketch  of 
forms,  —  ought  to  be  prepared  beforehand,  because,  when 
the  shadows  come,  the  artist  will  be  in  too  great  a  hurry 
to  draw  forms  correctly.  The  forms  of  the  objects  being 
accurately  drawn,  we  have  a  guide  to  the  forms  of  the 
shadows,  which  may  thus  be  put  in  with  the  utmost 
rapidity,  and  still  be  tolerably  correct.  It  is  not  to  be 
expected  in  a  memorandum  of  this  kind  that  the  grada- 
tions of  the  shadows  can  possibly  be  followed  ;  they  are 
far  too  subtle  and  delicate,  and  would  occupy  too  much 
time.  The  right  way  is  to  dash  the  shapes  of  the  shadows 
on  the  prepared  form,  drawing  with  a  large  camel-hair 
brush  full  of  a  pale  flat  tint  of  sepia:  any  more  elaborate 
kind  of  drawing  would  be  sure  to  be  untrue ;  because  as 
we  are  drawing  one  shadow,  all  the  others  are  steadily 
changing,  and  therefore  slow  work  in  such  memoranda  as 
these  is  always  false  work.  Mr.  Rowney's  indelible  brown 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  73 

ink  is  useful  for  the  preparatory  forms  ;  but  pencil  does 
nearly  as  well.  I  have  often  put  in  the  shadows  in  these 
memoranda  with  Rowney's  broad  lead  pencils,  which  are 
very  fine  instruments  for  such  work. 

When  the  shadows  are  particularly  numerous  and  elab- 
orate, it  is  a  good  plan  to  outline  them  all  very  rapidly 
first,  and  then  fill  them  up  to  the  outlines. 

The  true  shapes  of  shadows  got  by  these  means  always 
add  infinitely  to  the  general  air  of  veracity  in  the  com- 
pleted picture.  For  shadows  are  things  that  no  invention 
can  ever  guess  at  when  the  forms  that  cast  them,  and 
those  which  they  fall  upon,  are  alike  full  of  unknown 
changes.  No  one  but  a  tyro  ever  imagines  that  he  really 
knows  any  thing  about  the  form  of  a  mountain,  merely 
because  he  sees  it;  and  as  for  guessing  the  form  of  a 
shadow  that  one  mountain  will  throw  upon  another,  it 
is  impossible,  for  two  reasons,  —  first,  because  the  specta- 
tor knows  nothing  about  the  form  of  the  mountain  which 
casts  the  shadow ;  and,  secondly,  because  he  is  equally 
ignorant  of  the  form  of  the  mountain  on  which  the  shadow 
is  cast. 


FOURTH    STUDY. TRANSIENT    FORM   AND    COLOR. 

It  is  quite  useless  to  attempt  transient  form  and  color 
with  the  brush,  which  can  render  neither  truly  in  the  time. 
All  that  is  to  be  got  from  nature  in  cloud-drawing  is  a 
rapid  pencil  memorandum  of  the  natural  composition,  cov- 
ered all  over  immediately  afterwards  with  brief  shorthand 
notes  of  color  and  light.  Whilst  these  shorthand  notes 
are  being  added,  of  course  the  composition  will  be  rapidly 
breaking  up  and  running  into  new  forms  ;  but  we  have 
secured  its  main  lines,  nevertheless,  and  may  add  some 
notes  of  its  principal  colors.  I  have  a  great  number  of 
memoranda  of  Highland  effects  of  this  kind  taken  at  all 
seasons  of  the  year,  and  I  find  the  shorthand  notes  upon 
them  very  valuable  to  me  as  records  of  color  and  light. 
My  system  of  notation  once  thoroughly  mastered,  so  as  to 
be  always  at  one's  fingers'  ends,  opens  new  possibilities  of 


74  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

veracity  to  the  painter  of  transient  effects,  but  it  is  rather 
complicated  and  elaborate,  and  needs  long  practice  before 
it  can  be  used  with  the  necessary  readiness.  For  there  is 
this  peculiarity  in  all  memoranda  of  transient  effects,  that 
they  must  be  done  in  so  short  a  space  of  time  that  there  is 
not  a  second  to  spare  for  deliberation.  The  brain  must  be 
ready  and  in  full  action,  with  perfect  command  of  all  its 
means  and  materials  ;  the  hand  must  be  swift  and  uner- 
ring; the  eye  eager  and  piercing.  To  work  thus  at  utmost 
speed,  and  make  no  mistakes  in  the  application  of  an 
elaborate  set  of  signs,  it  is  necessary  to  have  used  them 
long.  Even  I  who  devised .  this  system  found  it  rather 
cumbersome  and  unmanageable  until  I  had  employed  it  at 
least  a  hundred  times. 

I  made  it,  however,  as  simple  as  ever  I  could,  and  used 
no  mysterious  hieroglyphics,  but  only  plain  initial  letters. 
Still,  as  blue  and  black  and  brown  all  begin  with  a  B,  I 
called  blue  H,  the  initial  letter  of  heaven,  because  the 
sky  is  blue;  and  black  I  marked  N,  because  night  is 
black.  Then,  again,  as  green  and  grey  both  begin  with  G, 
I  called  green  E,  because  the  earth  is  green  ;  and  as  rose 
and  red  both  begin  with  the  letter  R,  I  called  rose  F,  for 
flower.  With  these  little  changes,  I  found  I  could  repre- 
sent a  considerable  number  of  colors  with  one  letter  only 
for  each. 

COLORS. 

Red,  R.  Gray,  G. 

Blue,  H.  (heaven).  White,  W. 

Yellow,  Y.  Black,  N.  (night). 

Green,  E.  (earth).  Brown,  B. 

Purple,  P.  Crimson,  C. 

Violet,  V.  Scarlet,  S. 

Orange,  O.  Mauve,  M. 

Lilac,  L.  Drab,  D. 

Rose,  F.  (flower). 

But  as  colors  in  nature  are  hardly  ever  pure,  I  had  to 
find  out  some  way  of  writing  such  a  combination  as  bluish 
grey,  and  I  represented  the  syllable  ish  by  means  of  a 
colon,  thus,  H :  G.  Then,  as  the  words  "  warm  "  arid  "  cold  " 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  75 

are  much  used  by  artists  to  distinguish  tints  into  two  large 
classes,  I  invented  signs  for  them  thus :  warm  A,  cold  v . 
It  was  easy  to  remember  that  warm  was  something  like  a 
A  and  cold  the  same  sign  turned  upside  down. 

Then,  as  all  colors  in  nature  are  gradated,  I  required  some 
sign  capable  of  being  extended  at  will  over  a  great  surface, 
without  interfering  with  the  other  signs,  and  which  might 
thus  indicate  gradations  either  in  large  spaces  or  small. 
For  this  purpose  I  finally  selected  a  single  dotted  line: 

Since,  however,  it  was 

absolutely  necessary  that  I  should  know  which  end  of  my 
gradation  was  darker  than  the  other,  I  put  a  D  at  the 
darker  end,  and  an  L  at  the  lighter  end,  thus  :  — 


D 


Again,  as  the  same  color  would  occur  in  very  different 
degrees  of  intensity,  I  required  some  graduated  scale  of 
signs  to  indicate  the  degree.  I  found  the  following  most 
convenient  :  — 


Yellow 

Strong  Yellow 

Intense  Yellow 

Very  intense  Yellow  ... 

I  needed  a  simple  sign  for  the  word  "  pale,"  and  another 
for  the  word  "  dark,"  because  these  words  are  of  constant 
occurrence  in  memoranda  of  transient  effect.  For  "  pale  " 
I  took  a  small  open  circle  °,  and  for  "  dark  "  the  same  cir- 
cle filled  up  •. 

Thus  °G  is  pale  gray,  and  *G  dark  gray. 

In  taking  memoranda  of  skies,  every  painter  must  have 
perceived  that  their  colors  are  extremely  metallic  ;  even 
poets  perceive  this,  and  call  the  sky  "  golden,"  "  silvered," 
"  copper,"  "  leaden,"  and  the  French  poets  sometimes  call 
it  brazen  (d'airairi).  I  therefore  selected  the  metals  most 
likely  to  be  useful;  but  as  their  initial  letters  were  the 
same  as  some  already  devoted  to  colors,  I  wrote  each  in- 
itial letter  of  the  English  word  in  the  corresponding  small 
Greek  character.  It  would  have  been  useless  pedantry  to 


76  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

take  the  initials  of  the  Greek  words  themselves,  because  I 
am  not  in  the  habit  of  thinking  in  Greek.  This  gave  me 
the  following  additional  signs,  which  I  have  since  found  of 
great  use :  — 

Silver,        o.  Bronze,  /3. 

Gold,          y.  Aluminium,     «. 

Copper,     K.  Lead,  A. 

The  new  metal,  aluminium,  was  particularly  useful,  per- 
haps the  most  useful  of  all,  its  delicate  gray  being  of  con- 
stant occurrence  in  the  paler  rain-clouds. 

Again,  as  everybody  who  is  in  the  habit  of  reading 
poetry  must  have  remarked  that  the  poets,  when  they  de- 
scribe the  phenomena  of  the  sky,  cannot  get  on  at  all 
without  precious  stones,  and  as  the  peculiar  transparency 
of  air  and  semi-transparency  of  cloud  often  really  do 
resemble  precious  stones,  I  added  a  series  of  abbrevia- 
tions of  the  most  useful  stones,  thus,  taking  the  first  two 
letters  of  each  :  — 

Diamond,  Di.  Topaz,  To. 

Ruby,  Ru.  Amethyst,  Am. 

Emerald,  Em.  Turquoise,  Tu. 

Pearl,  Pe.  Coral,  Co. 

Sapphire,  Sa.  Opal,  Op. 

Chrysoprase,  Ch.  Lapis  Lazuli,  La. 

These  abbreviations  are  occasionally  of  great  use,  though 
less  frequently  required  than  the  preceding  ones. 

We  have  now  got  some  indication  of  color  and  grada- 
tion, but  in  order  to  make  our  memorandum  really  valu- 
able, we  require  tolerable  accurate  notes  of  light  and 
shade. 

There  is  really  no  time  to  get  these  with  the  brush.  It 
is  quite  impossible  by  such  means  to  define  the  degree  in 
which  a  light  cloud  relieves  itself  against  a  darker  one, 
before  both  are  transformed,  or  even  to  render  the  delicate 
differences  in  light  between  minute  portions  of  the  same 
cloud's  t  urface.  But  it  is  fortunate  that,  although  color 
can  only  be  noted  down  in  a  rude  and  imperfect  manner, 
degrees  of  light  can,  by  a  practised  student,  be  noted  with 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  77 

accuracy  and  precision.  It  is  not  desirable,  for  it  would 
be  of  no  use,  to  note  the  light  of  nature  as  it  is ;  we  need 
only  set  it  down  as  paint  is  able  to  represent  it.  I 
therefore  transpose  the  scale  of  Nature's  light  to  my  own 
scale  of  pictorial  light  in  the  memorandum  itself.* 

You  may  state  light  and  dark  with  quite  sufficient 
delicacy  by  means  of  numbers.  I  take  100  as  my  high- 
est light,  —  that  is,  the  sun,  and  the  intense  splendor 
immediately  surrounding  ft;  with  zero  for  my  darkest 
dark,  —  that 'is,  a  mountain  at  moonless  midnight.  All  the 
intermediate  numbers  represent  intermediate  degrees  of 
light. 

If  I  had  needed  more  minute  distinctions,  I  might  have 
graduated  my  light  into  a  thousand  degrees,  but  a  hundred 
were  quite  sufficient,  and  the  numbers  from  one  to  a  hun- 
dred will  express  degrees  of  light  with  a  delicacy  and 
exactness  which  no  combinations  of  words,  however  elabor- 
ate, could  rival.  They  have  also  the  great  advantage  of 
being  expressible  in  figures,  which  are  a  very  perfect  kind 
of  shorthand. 

In  looking  over  my  memoranda,  I  continually  find  such 
distinctions  as  this :  One  ridge  of  mountain  is  marked 
50,  another  close  to  it  51  ;  a  distinction  so  extremely 
delicate  that  nothing  but  numbers  or  art  could  state  it ; 
words  certainly  could  not,  and  all  artistic  expression  of  it 
would  cost  too  much  time.  The  slightest  exaggeration  in 
the  light  of  the  second  ridge  would  deprive  a  third  ridge 
of  its  relief,  and  so  destroy  the  truth  of  the  memorandum. 

By  the  help  of  numbers,  the  gradation  sign  gains  also  in 
significance. 

D .     L 

Here  is  the  gradation  without  the  help  of  numbers.  We 
know  that  the  color  is  darkest  at  our  left  hand,  and  lightest 
at  our  right ;  but  we  do  not  know  whether  the  gradation  is 
regular  or  not,  nor  whether  it  is  strong  or  faint.  Grada- 

*  The  reader  will  find  a  full  explanation  of  this  difference  in  scale  be- 
tween natural  and  pictorial  light  in  the  chapter  on  the  Relation  between 
Photography  and  Painting. 


78  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

tion  in  nature  is  hardly  ever  regular ;  it  usually  becomes 
more  rapid  towards  one  end  of  the  scale.  Let  us  see  how 
numbers  will  help  us. 

40  60  70  80 

D L 

We  see  by  this  that  the  gradation  is  much  more  rapid 
at  our  left  hand,  and  that  the  middle  tint  is  not  half-way 
from  the  dark  to  the  light,  but  much  nearer  the  dark. 

These  figures  being  written  in  a  very  minute  hand  may 
be  put  in  all  sorts  of  little  places.  A  mere  touch  of  in- 
tense sunshine  on  a  cloud  or  mountain  may  be  isolafed 
by  the  pencil-point,  and  marked  with  a  high  figure  to  indi- 
cate the  intensity  of  the  light  upon  it,  when  the  space 
would  be  too  small  to  allow  of  a  word  being  written  in  it. 

My  own  memoranda  of  transient  effects  are  covered  all 
over  with  these  signs ;  but  as  it  always  requires  some 
mental  effort  to  decipher  and  realize  such  complicated 
pages,  I  find  it  saves  time  to  translate  them  into  color 
before  painting  the  effects  in  studio  pictures. 


FIFTH    STUDY. TRANSLATION    OF    THE    PENCIL 

MEMORANDUM. 

I  am  so  much  more  accustomed  to  oil  than  to  water- 
color,  that  I  myself  prefer  translating  the  pencil  memoran- 
dum into  oil ;  but  I  think  the  wisest  way  is  always  to 
translate  it,  on  its  own  scale,  into  the  material  "in  which  the 
picture  is  to  be  painted.  If  it  is  a  water-color  drawing 
that  you  are  going  to  do,  your  memorandum  ought  to  be 
translated  into  water-color ;  but  if  for  an  oil  picture,  1 
think  it  should  be  done  in  oil.  The  reason  for  this  is,  that 
the  very  same  natural  color  is  rendered  quite  differently  in 
the  two  media,  and  there  is  always  some  degree  of  uncer- 
tainty and  confusion  in  translating  a  tint  from  one  of  the 
two  art  languages  into  the  other.  All  but  the  very  lest 
water-color  painting  is  extremely  crude,  in  comparison 
with  moderately  good  work  in  oil ;  and  this  crudeness 
is  especially  hateful  in  skies,  which  are  full  of  tender 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  79 

varieties  of  mingled   gray,  even   in  their    most   splendid 
passage?. 

In  making  this  translation,  the  forms  of  the  memoran- 
dum should  be  followed  with  the  most  servile  fidelity. 
Every  scratch  in  a  good  memorandum,  even  though  inac- 
curate, is  full  of  meaning,  and  is  not  to  be  omitted  without 
loss.  As  the  translation  is  to  be  done  on  the  scale  ,of  the 
memorandum,  accuracy  may  be  gained  and  time  saved  by 
tracing. 

PHOTOGRAPHIC    MEMORANDA. 

Whenever  painters  employ  the  camera  for  their  own 
purposes,  they  must  first  divest  themselves  of  all  desire  to 
produce  pretty  photographs.  The  photographic  process 
gives  very  little  truth  at  a  time,  and  it  is  necessary  that  the 
painter  who  has  recourse  to  it  should  know  exactly  what 
truth  he  wants,  and  sacrifice  every  other  truth  to  that.  It 
takes  half  a  dozen  photographs  to  get  the  details  of  a  single 
scene  if  it  is  extensive.  The  painter  should  fix  his  mind 
on  some  particular  portion  of  his  subject  each  time  he 
photographs  it,  and  try  for  that  particular  bit  only.  If 
he  does  this  intelligently  and  resolutely,  and  is  tolerably 
skilful  in  the  manipulation  of  the  wet  collodion  process,  he 
may  get  some  memoranda  which  will  be  useful  to  him  in 
the  way  of  reference.  One  notable  advantage  of  photog- 
raphy is  that  it  renders  the  forms  of  shadows  quite 
accurately,  and  all  at  once,  which  no  drawing,  however 
swift,  ever  can  do.  This  is  especially  useful  for  memo- 
randa of  mountains  whose  shadows  are  generally  so  multi- 
tudinous as  to  defy  the  draughtsman,  and  yet  so  expressive 
of  form  that  hardly  one  of  them  can  be  spared.  The 
whole  question  of  the  utility  of  photography  to  artists  is 
examined  in  the  chapter  on  the  Relation  between  Photog- 
raphy and  Painting. 

Such  are  the  principal  memoranda  which  it  is  desirable 
that  a  painter  should  possess  before  he  begins  a  great  work 
in  his  studio.  I  think  it  ought  to  be  by  this  time  evident 
that  painters,  who  gather  such  elaborate  memoranda  as 


80  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

these,  do  not  work  in  the  studio  merely  because  they  are 
too  idle  to  work  from  nature.  On  the  contrary,  it  would 
in  most  cases  be  a  considerable  economy  of  toil  to  do  the 
picture  itself  from  nature,  instead  of  devoting  weeks  of 
labor  to  the  patient  accumulation  of  materials. 

Although  we  are  to  rely  as  little  as  may  be  on  the 
memory,  we  cannot  paint  away  from  nature  without  con- 
tinual reference  to  it.  '  Minute  difficulties  are  perpetually 
arising,  which  nothing  but  the  memory  can  solve.  In 
order  to  paint  really  well  in  the  studio,  we  need  vast  and 
profound  science.  I  can  give  no  conception  to  persons  not 
practically  acquainted  with  our  art,  of  the  immense  miscel- 
lany of  information  which  a  landscape  painter  must  have 
at  his  command  if  he  would  make  the  best  use  of  his 
memoranda.  He  employs,  in  fact,  at  every  instant,  the 
whole  of  his  professional  education  and  experience,  just  as 
a  clever  lawyer  does  in  his  daily  practice,  or  a  skilful 
general  in  actual  warfare,  or  an  experienced  surgeon  when 
he  pays  his  daily  visit  to  his  hospital.  The  amount  of 
knowledge  which  may  be  concentrated  in  the  painting  of 
half  a  dozen  leaves,  or  in  the  covering  of  one  square  inch 
of  canvas  representing  a  bit  of  mountain  flank,  or  a  frag- 
ment of  morning  cloud,  is  so  vast  that  it  could  not  be  fairly 
stated  in  many  such  volumes  as  this,  even  if  words  could 
express  such  knowledge  at  all,  which  they  cannot.  And 
all  good  studio  painters,  however  abundant  and  minute 
their  memoranda,  paint  far  more  from  knowledge  accumu- 
lated in  the  memory  by  years  of  observation,  than  from  the 
studies  and  sketches  in  their  portfolios.  Hence  every  pru- 
dent painter  who  works  much  away  from  nature  will  train 
his  memory  by  systematic  exercise  to  the  utmost  strength 
possible  for  it.  How  far  such  training  may  be  of  use  we 
have  now  to  consider. 

The  Law  of  Exercise  is  universal.  The  memory  works 
under  that  law  just  as  the  muscles  do.  If  we  refuse  to 
exercise  our  muscles,  they  will  become  weak  and  useless ; 
if  we  refuse  to  exercise  our  memories,  they  will  become 
weak  and  useless.  There  is  no  escape  whatever  from  this 
law. 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  81 

When  a  man  condemns  his  arm  to  inaction  fora  number 
of  years,  as,  for  instance,  the  Indian  devotees  used  to  do, 
that  arm  withers  and  stiffens.  If  a  man  should  condemn 
his  memory  to  inaction  for  a  number  of  years,  his  memory 
would  wither  and  stiffen. 

People  see  that  their  bodies  want  exercise,  but  they  do 
not  perceive  that  all  their  faculties  want  it,  one  just  as 
much  as  another.  The  faculties  of'  the  mind  are  generally 
treated  much  in  this  fashion  :  those  that  the  individual  finds 
the  most  useful  in  the  way  of  money  getting  he  develops 
assiduously  by  exercise ;  and  the  other  faculties,  whose 
exercise  would  embarrass  and  impede  the  increase  of  his 
wealth,  he  leaves  to  die  out  in  disuse.  Thus  it  is  that  we 
find  so  many  fragments  of  men  and  so  few  men,  —  more 
artists  like  Turner,  who  could  not  spell,  than  like  Leonardo 
and  Michel  Angelo,  who  were  accomplished  gentlemen. 
And  thus  it  is  that  in  our  new  school,  if  we  do  not  look  to 
it  in  time,  we  run  some  risk  of  having  artists  who  are  not 
only  fragments  of  men,  but  even  fragments  of  artists,  with 
eye  and  hand  cultivated  to  the  utmost,  but  the  memory 
dead  of  disuse. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  the  memory  is  very  com- 
monly injured  and  ill-used. 

First  (the  old  way),  by  giving  it  no  variety  in  its  work, 
but  setting  it  to  one  little  dull  task  for  ever,  choosing  al- 
ways some  task  beneath  its  strength,  and  in  every  way 
unlikely  to  develop  its  strength. 

Secondly  (the  newly  invented  way),  by  refusing  it  all 
exercise  whatever,  despising  its  services,  and  shutting  it 
up  without  employment  till  it  gets  sickly  and  debilitated, 
and  incapable  of  the  slightest  exertion. 

Strictly  speaking,  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  land- 
scape painting  at  all  without  the  vivid  light  of  a  clear  and 
vigorous  memory.  Such  petty  fidelities  of  practice  as  are 
so  commonly  found  in  the  work  of  our  younger  students 
cannot  of  themselves  give  any  claim  to  the  title  of  land- 
scape painter.  Fancy  any  one  calling  himself  a  landscape 
painter  who  had  never  painted  a  mountain !  And  I  think 

6 


82  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

I  have  already  conclusively  shown  how  far  it  is  possible 
to  paint  a  mountain  without  the  aid  of  the  memory. 

But  if  the  memory  is  utterly  unaccustomed  to  carrying 
burdens,  poor  work  it  will  make  of  it.  Long  training  and 
much  labor  are  needed  before  the  memory  is  capable  of 
carrying  half  a  dozen  natural  truths  for  a  day  together. 

How  then  is  this  faculty  to  be  trained?  What  system 
of  mental  gymnastics  will  best  develop  its  force  and  enlarge 
its  capacity  ? 

The  right  way  is  to  learn  something  off  by  heart  every 
day  from  nature,  not  drawing  it  nor  sketching  it  in  any 
way  until  we  come  home,  and  then  trying  to  draw  it 
faithfully.  In  these  exercises  Invention  is  to  be  employed 
as  little  as  possible,  because  our  present  business  is  to 
make  our  memory  reliable.  It  is,  of  course,  wise  to  begin 
with  very  simple  things  indeed,  and  mere  pencil-sketching  ; 
afterwards  we  may  advance  to  sepia,  and,  lastly,  to  water- 
color  or  oil.  We  are  not  to  draw  from  memory  things  that 
we  have  already  drawn  from  nature,  because,  when  we  do 
that,  the  memory  always  has  recourse  to  the  drawing, 
and  not  to  the  scene  itself;  and  we  want  to  be  able  to 
remember  nature,  not  our  own  performances.  Bits  of 
building  are  good  for  practice,  because  they  are  full  of 
definite  measurable  facts,  and  are  easily  referred  to  after- 
wards. The  student  may  gradually  advance  until  he  comes 
to  try  to  learn  by  heart  the  front  of  a  great  Gothic  cathe- 
dral, so  as  to  draw  it  in  detail  at  home  without  having 
sketched  it  from  nature.  When  he  can  manage  some 
such  feat  as  this  approximately  well,  he  may  attempt  the 
sepia  study,  which  is  so  far  a  preparation  for  the  subse- 
quent color  work  that  it  contains  a  complete  statement  of 
the  relative  darkness  of  all  the  local  tints.  After  that  it 
may  be  well  to  attempt  oil-painting  from  memory  alone 
without  any  assistance  from  memoranda,  even  the  slightest 
sketch  being  a  help  too  great  to  be  permitted.  When  the 
details  of  a  complete  picture  can  be  carried  pretty  safely 
in  the  memory,  we  may  proceed  to  cultivate  the  inventive 
faculty. 

The  peculiarity  of  Invention  is,  that  it  is  based  on 


Painting  from  Memoranda.  83 

memory,  aud  is  quite  powerless  unless  the  memory  is 
richly  stored.  Inexperienced  artists  can  never  know 
whether  they  have  any  invention  or  not,  nor  can  any- 
body else  decide  it  for  them  until  they  have  trained  and 
stored  their  memories.  When  Turner  was  very  young, 
his  works  showed  no  trace  of  noble  invention ;  but  as  he 
grew  older  the  inventive  faculty  progressed  exactly  in 
proportion  as  he  enriched  his  memory.  Memory  is  like 
a  nation  that  provides  the  men  and  materials  of  war. 
Invention  is  the  emperor,  who  disposes  of  all  these  re- 
sources, and  marshals  them  on  the  fields  of  victory. 

When  we  have  for  years  been  in  the  habit  of  systemat- 
ically training  the  memory,  we  ought  to  be  rich  enough 
to  find  out  whether  we  really  have  any  invention  or  not ; 
and  it  becomes  henceforth  our  duty  to  cultivate  the  inven- 
tive faculty  by  exercise,  just  as  we  formerly  did  the  reten- 
tive faculty. 

The  way  to  do  this  is  to  paint  a  certain  number  of 
pictures  every  year  from  memory  .and  invention  alone, 
without  the  aid  of  memoranda.  If  we  are  strong  enough 
to  do  this  well,  it  is,  at  this  stage  of  our  culture,  the  severest 
and  best  training  possible  to  us  as  painters.  In  such  works 
as  these  the  memory  is  entirely  subordinate  to  invention, 
and  only  furnishes  the  materials  of  which  invention  dis- 
poses at  its  sovereign  will. 

So  that  there  are  all  these  different  ways  of  painting :  — 

1.  Real   painting  from    nature,  possible   only  in  fore- 
ground work. 

2.  Painting  from  nature  with  the  help  of  memoranda. 

3.  Painting  from  elaborate  memoranda,  away  from  na- 
ture. 

4.  Painting  from  memory,  aided  by  slight  notes. 

5.  Painting  from  the  unaided  memory. 

6.  Painting  from  invention,  aided  by  memory. 

Since  the  custom  of  painting  from  nature  became  preva-' 
lent,  there  appears  to  exist  a  most  unfounded  idea  to  the 
effect  that  no  progress  in  art  is  to  be  made  anywhere  but 
in  the  open  fields.  After  very  carefully  examining  the 
successive  works  of  several  landscape  painters  who  do  not 


84  Painting  from  Memoranda. 

paint  from  nature  at  all,  I  am  quite  convinced,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  striking  progress  is  constantly  made  in  the  art 
of  painting  within  the  walls  of  studios. 

We  do  not  in  the  studio  learn  any  thing  new  about  natu- 
ral aspects;  but  we  may  get  a  great  deal  of  practical 
experience  in  painting  as  an  art. 

And  at  this  particular  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  English 
school,  is  it  not  this  kind  of  experience  which  is  most 
needed  ? 


The  Place  of  Landscape  Painting.  85 


IV. 


THE  PLACE   OF  LANDSCAPE   PAINTING  AMONGST 
THE    FINE  ARTS. 

T  AND  SCAPE  painters  are  very  generally  aware  that 
•*-'  there  exist  amongst  figure  painters  and  in  society 
opinions  relative  to  landscape  art  which  tend  to  assign  it 
a  very  inferior  position.  These  opinions  are  not  without 
grounds  ;  they  are  founded  on  reasons  which  deserve  con- 
sideration ;  but  they  fail  to  take  into  account  other  reasons 
of  equal  weight,  which  would,  if  fairly  heard,  have  the 
effect  of  at  least  partially  counterbalancing  them.  I  there- 
fore invite  the  reader's  attention  to  the  whole  question,  and 
beg  him  to  enter  with  me  into  a  fair  examination  of  it, 
without  hoping  to  settle  definitively  either  this  or  any 
other  disputed  point  about  art,  for  it  is  idle  to  expect  per- 
fect harmony  of  opinion  on  these  matters ;  we  may  still 
benefit  ourselves  by  discussing  such  questions  as  this,  since 
they  involve  the  recognition  of  truths  which  we  are  always 
apt  to  lose  sight  of. 

Amongst  figure  painters  success  in  landscape  painting  is 
usually  held  in  slight  estimation  as  an  artistic  achievement, 
from  the  idea  that  it  is  so  easy  that  no  very  great  credit  is 
due  to  mastery  in  it.  The  truth  on  which  this  opinion  is 
founded  is  that  accurate  drawing  is  not  necessary  in  land- 
scape, and  that  scarcely  any  painter  who  confined  his 
studies  to  that  branch  of  the  profession  has  ever  been 
able  to  draw  accurately.  "  In  England,"  says  Mr.  Armi- 
tage,  "  nobody  knows  what  drawing  is."  *  Without  going 
quite  so  far  as  Mr.  Armitage,  we  may  safely  admit  that 
learned  drawing,  or  what  Mr.  Ford  Madox  Brown  would 

*  Minutes  of  Evidence  before  the  Royal  Academy  Commission. 
Question  5051. 


86  The  Place  of  Landscape  Painting 

call  the  pedantry  of  drawing,  is  much  rarer  in  England 
than  in  France.  But  it  is  a  fact  very  much  to  our  present 
purpose  that  the  French,  who  so  rigorously  exact  this  kind 
of  drawing  from  their  historical  painters,  scarcely  so  much 
as  take  it  into  consideration  as  one  of  the  minor  points 
in  a  landscape  painter.  The  favorite  landscape  painter 
amongst  artists  in  France,  the  one  whose  reputation  has 
been  made  by  the  admiration  of  artists,  Corot,  can  scarcely 
draw  better  than  a  school-girl.  Our  own  Turner  was  not 
an  accurate  draughtsman,  but  he  was  a  good  one.  The 
distinction  which  figure  painters  fail  to  observe  in  their 
criticisms  of  landscape  art  is  this  one  between  quality  and 
accuracy.  The  necessities  of  pictorial  composition  make 
accuracy  impossible  for  all  but  the  most  rigidly  topographic 
landscape  painter.  When  Titian  or  Paul  Veronese  wants 
a  form  to  support  another,  he  may  make  one  figure  bend 
and  still  draw  it  well ;  but  when  Turner  needs  the  same 
thing  in  a  mountain  composition,  he  has  to  alter  the  main 
lines  of  the  whole  scene,  and  consequently  every  detail 
within  them,  and  as  he  must  do  this  every  time  he  lays 
pencil  to  paper  he  becomes  habitually  inaccurate.  But 
quality  may  be  sought  for  and  attained  notwithstanding 
this  inaccuracy.  What  I  mean  by  quality  of  drawing  in 
landscape  is  its  truth  to  the  nature  of  the  thing  repre- 
sented. Perfectly  accurate  drawing  would  have  this,  of 
course,  for  it  would  be  included  in  the  merit  of  accuracy ; 
but  much  topographic  exactitude  may  be  reached  with 
very  low  quality  indeed.  The  popular  views  of  Switzer- 
land, that  so  many  tourists  have  such  an  odd  fancy  for 
carrying  away  in  their  portmanteaus  as  reminiscences  of 
the  country,  are  more  truthful  as  to  accuracy  than  Turn- 
er's, but  in  quality  of  drawing  they  are  beneath  contempt. 

The  next  question  is,  whether  this  quality  is  easy  of 
attainment. 

It  means,  as  I  have  said,  the  power  of  representing  the 
nature  of  things;  their  abstract,  innermost  nature.  For 
example,  cloud  must  look  like  cloud,  oak  tree  like  oak, 
granite  like  granite;  and  in  mountain  drawing  the  most 
expressive  markings  must  be  instinctively  selected.  In  all 


Amongst  the  Fine  Arts.  87 

things  the  kind  of  touch  and  workmanship  must  be  found 
which  will  most  truly  render  the  nature  of  the  object. 
An  accurate  outline,  even  accurate  modelling,  would  often 
be  easier  of  attainment  than  the  craft  which  can  accom- 
plish this. 

I  find  on  examining  the  works  of  great  landscape  paint- 
ers that  quality  of  this  kind,  in  drawing  and  color,  has 
come  to  be  their  chief  aim  in  middle  life.  They  may  try 
to  draw  accurately  at  first,  but  they  usually  discover,  be- 
fore the  age  of  thirty,  that  to  be  accurate  is  of  little  artistic 
use  in  comparison  with  that  far  deeper  kind  of  truth  which 
for  want  of  a  special  word  we  have  to  call  quality.  Turn- 
er let  many  of  his  more  solid  merits  melt  away  from  his 
canvases  in  the  hope  of  reaching  some  exquisite  results  of 
this  kind,  and  ultimately  his  aspirations  ended  in  utter 
shapelessness.  Constable  in  another  way  tried  for  quality, 
and  if  he  failed  in  form,  Troyon  and  the  Bonheurs  under- 
stood his  aims  and  profited  by  his  example. 

"  If  landscape  painters  could  draw,"  say  historical  paint- 
ers, "  they  could  draw  the  figure.  Now  we  see  that  every 
time  they  attempt  a  figure  they  make  things  no  better  than 
puppets  or  dolls  dressed  as  peasants,  therefore  we  decline 
to  consider  them  draughtsmen."  One  step  more,  and  it  is 
easy  to  refuse  even  the  title  of  artist  to  a  landscape  painter. 
If  you  consider  Academic  drawing  every  thing,  as  Ingres 
does ;  if  you  consider  that  without  accurate  drawing  there 
can  be  no  serious  art,  as  Mr.  Armitage  does,  then  you  can 
scarcely  look  upon  landscape  painters  as  artists  in  the 
serious  sense  at  all. 

The  difficulty  of  arguing  this  point  on  my  side  of  it  is, 
that  whilst  the  figure  painter  appeals  to  a  merit  easily 
ascertainable,  I  appeal  to  a  merit  which  cannot  be  proved 
to  the  satisfaction  of  any  but  competent  judges  ;  and  for 
them  all  such  proof  is  needless.  They  know  that  right 
abstraction  is  rare  and  difficult.  All  landscape  painters  find 
that  to  abstract  in  such  a  manner  as  to  explain  in  every 
touch  the  essential  nature  of  the  object,  requires  infinite 
care  and  study.  But  who  shall  judge  of  the  relative  merit 
of  different  abstractions  ?  It  is  evident  that  no  measuring 


88  The  Place  of  Landscape  Painting 

by  compasses  will  do  this  ;  for  we  admit  that  landscape 
abstraction  does  not  profess  accuracy  of  this  kind.  Rela- 
tive merit  can  then  only  be  determined  by  persons  who 
have  at  the  same  time  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the 
kind  of  object  represented,  practical  familiarity  with  the 
technical  difficulties  of  the  art,  and  a  mind  both  philo- 
sophical enough  to  comprehend  the  nature  of  abstract 
ideas,  and  capacious  enough  to  tolerate  various  interpreta- 
tions. This  last  quality  is  perhaps  the  rarest  of  the  critical 
endowments,  because  it  requires  us  to  have  seen  in  nature 
all  the  facts  which  the  united  observation  of  the  whole  body 
of  landscape  painters  has  been  able  to  discover  there,  and 
still  at  the  same  time  to  be  catholic  enough  to  praise  one 
man  for  seeing  one  order  of  truths,  and  another  for  seeing 
a  quite  different  order. 

Now  it  is  hopeless  to  expect  these  critical  requirements 
from  any  one  who  in  the  least  despises  landscape  art.  If 
you  perceive  in  any  one,  whether  painter  or  connoisseur, 
the  slightest  approach  to  superciliousness  in  speaking  of 
landscape,  you  may  rely  upon  it  that  he  neither  has  ac- 
quired nor  ever  can  acquire,  so  long  as  he  remains  in  that 
mood,  any  real  knowledge  of  the  subject.  And  the  objec- 
tion I  have  to  make  to  the  criticism  of  persons  inclined  to 
think  little  of  landscape  lies  there,  that  they  begin  by  de- 
spising it,  and  look  upon  the  subject  as  unworthy  their 
serious  attention,  consequently  they  are  from  the  very 
beginning  in  an  unteachable  and  unobservant  frame  of 
mind. 

It  is  evident  how  seriously  belief  in  the  facility  of  land- 
scape must  detract  from  the  consideration  of  landscape 
painters  amongst  artists,  for  artists  always  esteem  each 
other  mainly  by  reference  to  a  standard  of  technical  diffi- 
culty. This  is  probably  one  reason  why  landscape  paint- 
ers find  Academic  honors  all  but  hopelessly  unattainable 
by  them.  One  of  the  most  distinguished  of  living  Aca- 
demicians said  to  me,  "  The  great  charm  of  landscape 
painting  is  that  it  is  so  delightfully  easy,"  and  I  believe 
most  other  figure  painters  share  this  impression.  The 
feeling  that  they  are  no  longer  obliged  to  draw  accurately 


Amongst  the  Fine  Arts.  89 

when  painting  landscape  backgrounds  is  to  them  a  feeling 
of  relief.  They  enjoy  a  liberty  which  has  removed  an 
irksome  responsibility  and  restraint,  and  are  little  capable 
in  the  full  fruition  of  this  novel  pleasure,  of  estimating  the 
real  difficulties  of  an  art  which  they  take  up  occasionally 
in  the  spirit  of  relaxation.  The  public,  too,  is  particularly 
kind  and  indulgent  in  its  demands  upon  the  landscape 
backgrounds  of  figure  painters.  It  expects  nothing  more 
than  a  slight  sketch  which  shall  surround  the  figures  with 
not  inharmonious  coloring.  No  true  colorist  can  give  less 
than  that,  even  in  his  most  careless  hours. 

But  is  landscape  easy  ?  Let  us  consider  what  elements 
it  is  composed  of,  what  materials  it  attempts  to  represent. 

A  landscape  painter  has  to  encounter  the  difficulties  of 
imitating  the  sky,  the  earth,  vegetation,  and  water,  and 
these  difficulties  are  complicated  and  multiplied  infinitely 
by  effect,  which,  in  landscape,  utterly  transfigures  every 
object  it  touches,  so  that  an  object  under  one  effect  does 
not  seem  to  be  the  same  thing,  has  not  even  apparently  the 
same  form,  as  under  another.  It  may  also  be  observed 
that  the  difficulties  of  landscape  painting  are  most  seriously 
increased  by  the  evanescence  of  the  appearances  it  attempts 
to  represent.  If  the  effect  would  stay,  the  art  would  be 
less  difficult,  though  still  very  far  from  easy.  But  so  soon 
as  the  landscape  painter  desires  to  record  any  of  those 
magnificent  unities  of  nature,  when  her  scenery  masses 
itself  together  in  full  synthesis,  he  must  work  from  mem- 
ory alone. 

Has  the  reader  ever  actively  looked  at  a  cloud,  or  a 
tree,  or  a  running  brook,  or  a  calm  lake  ?  Perhaps  not, 
for  the  majority  never  look  at  these  things ;  they  like 
pleasant  landscape,  they  benefit  by  its  exquisite  influences, 
sunshine,  lovely  colors,  sweet  sounds,  and  pure,  refreshing 
air ;  all  these  they  truly  appreciate  and  value  in  their  way, 
but  they  no  more  study  them  than  an  amorous  boy  studies 
the  anatomy  of  the  fair  face  he  delights  in.  External 
nature  is,  to  the  mass  of  mankind,  a  source  of  sensuous 
refreshment,  not  a  matter  of  laborious  observation ;  it  is 
passive  pleasure  and  perpetual  benefit.  Happier  than  critic 


90  The  Place  of  Landscape  Painting 

or  painter,  the  rest  of  mankind  need  only  enjoy  what  these 
have  to  investigate  and  remember. 

But  if  the  reader  has  ever  looked  at  a  cloud,  can  he 
believe  that  clouds  are  easy  things  to  paint?  Take  a 
great,  elaborate,  well-developed  cumulus,  for  example,  — 
would  not  the  modelling  of  it  puzzle  Ingres  himself,  and 
the  unapproachable  splendor  of  it  defeat  him  ?  Could  he, 
could  any  one,  remember  the  true  detail  of  it  faithfully 
enough  ?  Could  any  one  draw  it  delicately  enough  ? 

Who  ever  really  painted  a  field  of  the  cloud  vulgarly 
known  as  mares'  tails,  —  those  long  films,  delicate  as  the 
trains  of  comets,  which  wave  with  gentle  curves  across 
the  sky  ?  Who  can  remember  a  field  of  thirty  thousand 
cirri  so  as  to  paint  it  truly  ?  Hundreds  of  artists  have 
attempted  to  render  storms,  but  who  ever  gave  the  true 
evolution  of  the  heavily-laden  thunder-cloud  ?  You  who 
say  that  landscape  is  easy,  paint  for  us  the  form  and  hue 
of  those  threatening  messengers!  There  is  modelling 
enough  there,  and  strange  gradations  of  lurid  color  too. 

And  the  flames  of  sunset,  dashing  the  blue  lead  color  of 
the  clouds  at  the  horizon  with  intense  streaks  of  crimson 
fire,  fainter  as  they  rise  towards  the  zenith,  and  fading 
over  our  heads  in  scarcely  perceptible  inward  glowing; 
are  they  easy?  Is  it  easy  to  get  that  light  with  that 
color  ? 

And  the  gradations  in  the  exquisite  open  sky,  so  deep, 
so  pure,  so  ever  varying,  by  whom  have  they  been  quite 
rightly,  quite  unexceptionably  wrought?  By  one  or  two 
early  religious  painters,  it  may  be,  but  not  in  their  full 
variety.  Who  can  graduate  quite  truly  an  evening  sky 
with  intense  gold  at  the  horizon  and  cold  blue  at  the 
zenith  ?  Will  there  not  generally  occur  some  dubious  or 
false  passage  between  the  gold  and  the  blue  ?  Skilful  paint- 
ers of  draperies,  are  you  perfectly  confident  that  you  can 
quite  successfully  resolve  this  particular  little  problem? 
And  if  you  had  mastered  it,  why,  there  are  a  million  more 
such  problems  in  reserve  for  you,  tons  plus  difficiles  les  uns 
que  les  autres. 

Mountains,  too,  are  supposed  to  be  easy.     I  may  be  ex- 


91 


Amongst  the  Fine  Arts 


cused  for  feeling  sceptical  on  that  point.  I  lived  a  few 
years  under  the  shadow  of  Ben  Cruachan,  and  carefully 
observed  him  under  thousands  of  very  different  aspects, 
but  it  never  occurred  to  me  that  that  immense  agglomer- 
ation of  ever-changing,  yet  always  perfectly  harmonious 
detail,  could  by  any  possibility  become  easy  to  paint. 
Every  separate  aspect  of  that  mountain  would  have  cost 
the  labor  of  months,  and  it  did  not  last  even  minutes,  only 
fractions  of  a  minute.  Who  can  carry  in  his  memory  for 
months  the  true  relative  color  and  true  apparent  form  of 
the  hundred  minor  hills  that  boss  his  craggy  sides  ?  But 
if  Cruachan  and  Shehallion  are  too  easy,  have  we  not  the 
Alps  on  which  to  wreak  our  energies  ?  If  bosses  of  crag 
and  heather  are  unworthy  of  us,  the  white  waves  and 
azure  crevasses  of  a  glacier  may  deserve  our  condescend- 
ing attention.  Why  does  not  some  famous  painter  of 
history  deign  to  prove  to  us  that  glaciers  are  easy  enough, 
after  all,  to  men  who  have  had  the  advantages  of  a  sound 
Academical  education  ? 

The  subject  of  foliage  is  sure  to  draw  forth  the  usual 
reference  to  Titian's  "  Peter  Martyr."  On  this,  however, 
two  observations  may  be  made  :  the  first,  that  all  figure 
painters  are  not  necessarily  Titians ;  the  second,  that  his 
foliage,  though  the  best  in  old  art,  is  not  nearly  so  good  as 
his  figures.  However,  I  have  not  yet  seen  his  "  Peter 
Martyr,"  and  prefer,  for  the  present,  to  avoid  any  discus- 
sion in  which  I  could  only  speak  on  the  authority  of  en- 
gravings. 

I  do  not  admit  that  Titian  succeeded  as  a  landscape 
painter,  further  than  this,  that  he  painted  landscape  back- 
grounds which,  as  such,  were  satisfactory,  and  suited  his 
figures.  They  are  partly  naturalistic,  but  also  to  a  great 
degree  governed  by  a  conventionalism  of  his  own.  But 
even  if  Titian  had  painted  landscape  as  well  as  paint 
would  permit,  would  the  necessary  inference  be  that  land- 
scape was  easy,  or  even  that  it  was  easy  for  all  figure 
painters  ?  That  would  be  a  poor  compliment  to  Titian. 
Probably  I,  who  consider  landscape  difficult,  respect 
Titian  more  for  what  seems  to  me  a  very  partial  mastery 


92  The  Place  of  Landscape  Painting 

in  the  art,  than  many  others  do  for  what  seems  to  them 
absolute  success  in  it. 

With  regard  to  the  foliage  in  the  backgrounds  of  mod- 
ern figure  painters,  it  may  be  summarily  divided  into  two 
classes:  the  careless  and  the  careful.  To  the  careless 
belongs  all  modern  background  foliage  up  to  the  second 
quarter  of  this  century,  and  most  of  it  since.  To  the 
careful  belongs  the  work  of  Leslie,  Mulready,  Millais,  and 
a  few  less  celebrated  men.  Now  Leslie,  though  every- 
body dislikes  the  chalkiness  of  his  color,  was  a  real 
painter.  He  could  paint  an  expression,  but  he  could  not 
paint  a  tree ;  there  are  some  trees  of  his  at  South  Ken- 
sington, which,  though  excusable  enough  in  a  painter  of 
polite  comedy,  would  not  do  credit  to  a  professor  of  land- 
scape. I  should  imagine  that  Millais  would  paint  a  better 
tree  now  than  when  he  attempted  the  willow  in  the  Ophe- 
lia, or  the  blooming  orchard  that  we  all  remember.  Those 
efforts,  though  serious,  and  therefore  most  creditable  (for 
how  rare  is  such  condescension  on  the  part  of  a  painter  of 
genre  !),  failed  on  the  side  of  hardness.  The  leafage  was 
not  like  free,  soft,  natural  leafage,  with  life  and  sap  in  its 
vessels  ;  it  was  like  artificial  leaves  carefully  cut  out  of 
sheet  metal  painted  green.  The  foliage  and  even  the 
bough  drawing  of  Mulready  fail  in  another  way.  They 
attempt  massing,  but  they  are  entirely  conventional,  and 
as  examples  for  young  landscape  painters  no  models  could 
well  be  worse.  His  trees  are  bad  examples,  on  account  of 
his  satisfaction  with  them ;  there  is  no  sign  of  effort  after 
better  things.  They  are  drawn  with  more  refinement  per- 
haps, as  to  line,  than  Constable's,  but  there  is  a  quality 
in  Constable's  work  which  all  landscape  painters  must  ap- 
preciate, the  noble  dissatisfaction  which  would  rather  even 
daufr  than  draw,  if  in  "  drawing "  is  to  be  involved  the 
sacrifice  of  moisture  and  mystery  and  freshness.  Consta- 
ble's trees  are  painted  by  a  man  who  feelingly  loved 
nature,  and  desired  to  express  how.  nature  affected  him. 
Mulready's  are  either  empty  abstractions,  or  cold,  though 
industrious,  studies. 

Not  that  an  intelligent  critic  could,  without  reserve,  say 


Amongst  the  Fine  Arts.  93 

that  any  one's  foliage  is  "  good."  No  painter  hitherto  has 
done  more  than  express  two  or  three  of  the  chief  qualities 
of  trees.  Foliage  is  so  infinitely  difficult  that  human  craft 
always  fails  before  it  in  some  point,  and  always  must. 

In  near  leaf  drawing  no  landscape  painter  has  hitherto 
particularly  distinguished  himself.  A  few  figure  painters 
have  introduced  leaves  well  when  they  have  paid  attention 
to  them  ;  but  they  seldom  give  their  natural  relations  as 
to  position ;  they  usually  separate  the  leaves  more  than 
nature  does,  and  avoid,  to  some  considerable  extent,  the 
difficulties  of  fore-shortened  curves. 

When  you  add  to  difficulties  of  drawing  and  color  those 
of  illumination,  you  have  a  complication  which  only  the 
greatest  executants  may  hope  to  contend  with.  An  ac- 
complished master  of  the  figure  showed  me  several  studies 
in  which  he  had  seriously  attempted  to  paint  near  leaves 
in  sunshine,  all  failures,  and  he  knew  it.  The  intensity  of 
reflection  and  the  brilliancy  of  transparency  in  sun-lighted 
leaves,  all  acting  upon  and  through  surfaces  of  such  ex- 
tremely varied  and  complex  curvature,  produce  in  the  ag- 
gregate difficulties  which  no  mortal  hand  may  conquer. 

Of  water  I  hardly  know  how  to  speak,  so  little  is  pop- 
ularly known  of  it.  Even  such  a  comparatively  common 
and  simple  fact  as  the  interruption  of  a  reflection .  by  a 
breeze  is  beyond  the  cognizance  of  many  persons  who  con- 
cern themselves  with  the  fine  arts.  I  had  a  curious  in- 
stance of  ignorance  of  water  phenomena  one  day  when 
talking  with  a  French  art  critic.  I  discovered  that  he 
was  under  the  impression  that  an  object  could  not  be  re- 
flected in  water  unless  the  sun  was  behind  the  object ;  he 
actually  believed  that  reflections  and  shadows  were  the 
same  thing.  A  moment's  observation  on  the  side  of  any 
pond  would  have  taught  him  a  very  different  theory^  but 
this  little  effort  of  observation  is  just  what  you  cannot  get 
people  to  give.  The  fact  that  breezes  take  all  sorts  of 
different  colors  is  also  not  generally  understood,  a  breeze 
being  popularly  supposed  to  be  white,  even  by  persons  ad- 
vanced enough  to  know  that  there  are  such  things  as 
breezes.  So  if  any  historical  painter  chooses  to  say  that 


94  The  Place  of  Landscape  Painting 

water  is  very  easy,  I  scarcely  .know  how  to  answer  him, 
the  word  "  water "  not  signifying  the  same  thing  to  both 
of  us. 

To  paint  a  lake  surface  rightly,  if  it  is  varied  by  breezes 
and  calms,  and  semi-calms  and  demi-semi-calms  (for  there 
are  such  things,  and  they  are  often  all  visible  at  one  time), 
to  paint  such  a  lake  surface,  I  say,  with  all  the  curves  of 
its  breeze  outlines,  and  the  truth  of  reflection  in  its  little 
isolated  bits  of  perfect  mirror,  and  the  ineffably  light  dim- 
ness of  places  that  the  faintest  airs  have  breathed  upon, 
and  the  million-rippled  acres  where  the  breeze  is  stronger, 
—  to  paint  that  vast  and  marvellous  surface,  so  perfect  in 
its  finish,  so  exquisite  in  the  phantasy  of  its  design,  so 
wide,  so  wonderful,  and  above  all  so  evanescent,  is  a  task 
to  try  the  utmost  skill  of  hand,  the  utmost  power  of  mem- 
ory, the  utmost  delicacy  of  sight  ever  reached  by,  or  given 
to,  the  most  finely  organized  of  men ! 

And  sea-waves,  —  what  of  them  ?  Who  can  paint  a 
wave,  who  can  even  draw  one?  Stanfield  and  Turner 
have  given  us  two  interpretations  of  waves  which  do  in- 
deed render  some  of  the  facts,  and  are  full  of  honest  in- 
tentions ;  but  if  you  want  difficulties,  even  the  elementary 
ones  are  as  yet  unconquered. 

Is  .there  not  an  admission  of  the  difficulty  of  landscape 
in  the  very  desperation  of  the  best  landscape  painters  ? 
When  Turner  came  to  paint  at  last  in  his  wild  later  way, 
that  was  due  to  a  recklessness  brought  on  by  two  causes  ; 
first,  the  impossibility  of  really  painting  the  facts  he  de- 
sired to  record;  secondly,  the  uselessness  of  trying  to 
make  them  intelligible  to  the  common  public.  And 
Corot,  too,  is  reckless  of  much  that  a  less  sensitive  artist 
would  strive  for.  When  he  gets  the  right  relative  tone  on 
any  part  of  his  canvas,  he  dares  not  meddle  with  it,  dares 
not  put  detail  upon  it,  may  lightly  sketch  a  thin  twig  or 
two  across  it,  but  is  far  too  prudent  to  attempt  what  we 
call  "  finish."  For  finish  in  landscape  painting  is  gener- 
ally false,  because  true  finish  is  so  infinitely  difficult. 
When  a  third-rate  artist  industriously  dots  over  his  trees 
with  little  regular  lumps  of  paint,  he  calls  that  "  finish." 


Amongst  the  Fine  Arts.  95 

No  sensitive  painter  could  endure  to  do  that ;  he  would 
rather  splash  like  Constable,  daub  like  Daubigny,  blur 
and  rub  like  Corot,  blot  and  wash  like  David  Cox.  All 
these  men  would  have  told  you  that  they  considered  their 
methods  quite  inadequate  to  represent  nature,  but  that 
landscape  painting  was  so  difficult  that  they  were  forced 
to  content  themselves  with  any  thing  that  would  even  ap- 
proach the  kind  of  quality  they  desired.* 

Those  who  most  habitually  undervalue  landscape  paint- 
ing for  its  inaccuracy  are  the  very  persons  who  least 
clearly  understand  what  accurate  drawing  in  landscape  is 
and  leads  to.  It  would  lead  to  pure  topography,  and  there 
is  little  encouragement  to  draw  landscape  in  that  manner. 
A  painter  is  an  author,  and  likes  to  move  his  public,  and 
topography  moves  nobody.  And  not  only  that,  but  topog- 
raphy, being  the  product  of  an  artificial  and  rigidly  self- 
conscious,  self-governing  state  of  mind,  does  not  even 
satisfy  the  artist  himself.  ,  If  you  draw  an  object  freely 
and  innocently  as  it  appears  to  you,  even  setting  aside  all 
intention  of  composition,  it  will  be  quite  wrong  topograph- 
ically. To  get  into  a  cool  and  accurate  state  you  must 
reason  with  yourself,  and  say,  "  Every  hill  is  half  the 
height  it  looks,  every  curve  looks  twice  as  round  as  it  is, 
every  interesting  feature  is  insignificant."  You  must  dis- 
believe the  evidence  of  your  senses,  divest  yourself  not 
only  of  the  enthusiasm  of  the  artist,  but  even  of  the  com- 
mon feelings  of  humanity  ;  you  must  train  yourself  by 
patient  labor  and  cautious  self-denial  to  become*  a  looking- 
glass.  Are  the  backgrounds  of  the  great  historical  paint- 
ers models  of  this  accuracy  ?  And  if  they  have  it  not,  and 
can  yet  maintain  a  reputation  as  draughtsmen,  why  may 

*  T  ought  to  say  that  since  writing  "A  Painter's  Camp  in  the  High- 
lands," in  which  (vol.  ii.  p.  374)  I  spoke  somewhat  severely  of  Constable, 
some  change  has  taken  place  in  my  views  of  him.  Seeing  much  more  in 
nature  than  I  did  then,  I  can  better  enter  into  the  true  spirit  of  his  work. 
His  execution  still  seems  to  me  empirical ;  but  I  have  learned  to  prefer 
intelligent  experiments  which  prove  original  observation,  even  when  they 
are  only  partially  successful,  to  clever  traditional  handicraft.  I  have  not 
space  here  to  do  Constable  justice,  but  hope  to  do  so  fully  on  a  future 


96  The  Place  of  Landscape  Painting 

not  landscape  painters  who  are  but  equally  far  from  such 
rigid  exactitude,  escape  the  reproach  of  bad  drawing  ? 

Historical  painters  are  no  doubt  generally  in  the  right 
when  they  consider  themselves  more  highly  trained  than 
landscape  artists.  It  is  not  because  they  are  more  indus- 
trious or  more  intelligent,  but  the  figure,  though  not  less 
difficult  than  the  materials  of  landscape,  aifords  a  more 
convenient  and  regular  training.  Its  modelling  can  be 
studied  quietly  under  a  manageable  light  day  after  day ; 
its  surface  is  not  broken  as  tree  masses  are  by  leaves,  and 
mountain  masses  by  rocks  and  forests ;  it  is  not  so  full  of 
unforeseen  accident ;  you  know  what  to  expect,  and  you 
find  it ;  and,  above  all,  when  you  are  wrong,  you  readily 
perceive  your  error.  Landscape,  as  usually  pursued, 
affords  no  such  steady  and  instructive  training.  Many 
clouds  are  as  elaborate  in  form  as  a  living  model,  but  the 
model  will  stay  for  you  and  the  cloud  not.  Cloud  draw- 
ing, as  training,  is  therefore  what  the  figure  would  be  if 
the  students  were  only  allowed  to  see  nude  figures  march- 
ing past  them,  never  for  one  instant  still.  Waves  are  even 
worse  than  clouds,  mountains  somewhat  better,  yet  not  so 
much  better  as  would  seem  to  persons  who  have  not  tried 
to  paint  them  from  nature ;  for  a  mountain  never  gives  you 
time  to  study  its  modelling  fairly.  As  for  trees,  the 
changes  of  light  affect  them  even  more  than  they  do  a 
solid  substance,  for  the  light  gets  into  a  tree  amongst  the 
leaves,  and  alters  it  continually  from  within  as  well  as 
from  without.  Then,  if  you  want  to  study  leaves,  —  draw 
them  on  the  bough,  the  light  alters,  the  breeze  moves 
them  ;  bring  them  into  the  house,  and  they  droop  and  fail 
out  of  their  places.  And  for  the  first  elementary  study  of 
mountains  or  foliage,  what  can  you  get  comparable  in  point 
of  practicable  utility  to  a  statue  for  the  figure  ?  The  best 
model  of  mountain  scenery  in  the  world  is  probably  that 
of  Mont  Blanc  and  its  surrounding  valleys,  at  Geneva; 
but  a  student  of  landscape  could  not  procure  such  models, 
and  if  he  could,  they  are  only  topographic  sketches  of  the 
very  rudest  kind,  lacking  all  those  refinements  that  an 
artist  looks  for. 


Amongst  the  Fine  Arts.  97 

Again,  the  first  training  of  a  figure  painter  is  more  use- 
ful, as  we  see ;  but,  what  is  of  still  greater  consequence  to 
him  as  an  artist,  his  practical  work  after  is  more  improving 
than  landscape  work.  Landscapes  are  for  the  most  part 
painted  in  the  studio  ;  they  are  always  painted,  even  when 
in  the  presence  of  nature,  to  a  large  extent  from  memory. 
Painting  from  memory  may  exercise  that  faculty,  but  it 
adds  nothing  to  the  stock  of  acquired  information.  A  fig- 
ure painter,  working  constantly  more  or  less  from  models, 
painting  even  inanimate  accessories  from  the  actual  objects, 
is  always  acquiring  information,  always  training  and  main- 
taining his  faculty  of  representing  things,  and  that  faculty 
is  nothing  less  than  the  very  foundation  of  pictorial  power. 
So  that  figure  painters  are  likely  to  be  better  craftsmen 
than  landscape  painters.  And  are  they  not  so  in  fact  ? 
Surely  no  unprejudiced  observer  can  have  failed  to  re- 
mark it. 

The  low  position  of  landscape  in  the  estimation  of  acade- 
mies is  probably  in  part  attributable  to  this  cause.  The 
faculty  of  able  representation  is  rightly  esteemed  by  all 
good  painters,  and  a  class  of  artists  which  is  habitually 
deficient  in  this  quality  is  svye  to  find  a  difficulty  in  acquir- 
ing, from  artists,  honor  and  recognition.  But  the  niggard 
recognition  of  landscape  is  also  due  to  still  more  serious 
objections.  It  is  the  commonly  received  doctrine  amongst 
painters  of  history  and  genre,  that  figure  painting  is  the 
representation  of  mind,  whereas  landscape  painting  is  the 
representation  of  matter.  By  an  inference,  not  altogether 
justified,  as  I  hope  to  show,  not  altogether  logical,  yet  an 
inference  of  a  kind  which  many  persons  are  in  the  habit 
of  accepting  without  question,  they  proceed  thence  to  the 
conclusion  that  to  paint  the  figure  requires  mind,  whilst  to 
paint  landscape  mind  is  not  requisite,  or  at  any  rate,  never 
called*  for  in  any  thing  like  the  same  degree. 

There  are  writers  who  speak  of  Turner  as  a  copier  of 
lifeless  matter.  This  view  ignores  two  things  :  first,  the 
mind  of  Turner,  who  threw  his  whole  soul  into  an  inter- 
pretation of  nature  which  was  as  far  removed  from  copy- 
ism  as  Shakspeare's  writing  is  from  newspaper  reporting ; 

7 


98      .       The  Place  of  Landscape  Painting 

and  secondly,  the  mind  of  God,  which  invests  external 
nature  with  all  its  interest,  exactly  as  the  mind  of  an 
author  invests  paper  and  print  with  interest. 

The  fact  is,  that  by  our  ingenious  invention  of  a  goddess 
of  nature,  whom  we  are  in  the  habit  of  speaking  very 
lightly  about,  we  have  left  the  idea  of  God  to  theologians. 
In  our  mythology  this  nature-goddess  holds  a  peculiar 
place  of  her  own.  She  is  half  demon,  half  deity.  Ten- 
nyson says  she  is 

"  Red  in  tooth  and  claw, 
With  ravine." 

Ruskin  accuses  her  of  miserliness  !  "  Sometimes  I  have 
thought  her  miserliness  intolerable;  in  a  gentian,  for  in- 
stance, the  way  she  economizes  her  ultramarine  down  in 
the  bell  is  a  little  too  bad."  Scores  of  writers  speak  of 
her  in  the  same  disrespectful  tone.  Substitute  God  for 
nature,  and  Him  for  her,  and  see  how  that  little  accusa- 
tion of  miserliness  reads ! 

Do  these  writers  really  believe  that  nature  consciously 
exists  as  a  working  goddess?  Probably  not.  She  is  a 
fiction  for  the  sake  of  convenience.  In  the  present  state 
of  the  public  mind  no  fearless  investigation  of  the  Divine 
system  of  government,  as  we  see  it  actually  at  work,  is  per- 
mitted to  us ;  so  when  we  talk  of  any  hard  and  inexorable 
law,  it  is  a  "  law  of  nature ; "  we  do  not  exactly  like,  as 
yet,  to  call  it  a  law  of  God.  By  this  timidity  we  do  our- 
selves serious  intellectual  injury,  and,  amongst  many  other 
unfortunate  results,  we  arrive  at  one  which  closely  concerns 
our  present  argument.  Natural  scenery,  as  the  work  of  a 
supposed  nature-goddess,  whom  we  do  not  respect,  has  not, 
for  us,  any  thing  like  that  serious  interest  which  it  would 
have  had  if  we  could  have  received  it  as  a  direct  expres- 
sion of  the  Supreme. 

I  put  forward  this  argument  with  no  intention  of  writing 
what  foreigners  so  justly  reprobate  as  our  English  cant. 
For  instance,  in  looking  at  a  fine  natural  scene,  the  head 
of  Loch  Awe  if  you  will,  it  never  occurs  to  me  to  imagine 
that  God  designed  it  as  an  artist  composes  a  picture.  I 


Amongst  the  Fine  Arts.  99 

believe,  rather,  that  by  the  operation  of  general  laws  de- 
pressions in  the  earth  were  produced,  nobody  knows 
exactly  how,  and  that  these  basins  become  lakes,  as  the 
depressions  in  a  Yorkshireman's  plate  of  porridge  become 
pools  of  milk,  whilst  the  lumps  rise  out  of  them  moun- 
tainously.  And  in  my  view  the  Scotch  or  Swiss  lakes  and 
mountains  cost  the  Creator  just  as  much  thought  as,  and 
no  more  than,  the  hollows  and  lumps  in  the  porridge.  So 
of  effects  ;  I  see  God's  invention  in  them,  but  do  not  super- 
stitiously  imagine  that  He  designed  every  sunset  sepa- 
rately as  a  painter  does. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  in  spite  of  this  modern  recogni- 
tion of  pervading  law,  producing  artistic  beauty  as  it 
produces  mechanical  construction,  I  never  look  at  any 
natural  scene  or  object  without  the  sense  of  being  placed 
by  it  in  direct  communication  with  the  Supreme  Artist. 
You  may,  if  you  will,  call  this  world  inanimate  nature, 
but  every  atom  of  it  is  inscribed.  And  let  the  reader  be 
assured  that  to  comprehend  never  so  slight  a  manifestation 
of  the  Divine  mind  is  no  unworthy  task  for  the  proudest 
and  cleverest  of  us.  All  who  study  the  great  natural 
Revelation  are,  as  to  the  subject-matter  of  their  studies, 
on  a  footing  of  fraternal  equality.  Anatomists,  astrono- 
mers, botanists,  geologists,  landscape  painters,  figure  paint- 
ers, no  one  of  these  has  the  right  to  despise  the  pursuit  of 
the  other.  There  are  inequalities  of  capacity :  Raphael  is 
greater  than  Dughet,  but  so  is  Turner  greater  than  Hay- 
don  and  West.  In  science  we  find  no  such  narrow  classi- 
fications. Men  who  explore  the  solar  photosphere  do  not 
scorn  men  who  explore  a  grain  of  pollen  ;  men  who  dis- 
sect the  human  body  do  not  scorn  men  who  dissect 
vegetables. 

And  one  great  reason  why  we  go  to  external  nature 
now  is  because  man  no  longer  conveys  to  us  the  Divine 
idea  in  its  purity,  as  an  alp  or  a  wild  chamois  does.  It  is 
very  well  to  say  that  all  human  developments  are  in  their 
origin  Divine  ideas,  and  no  doubt  this  is  in  a  certain  sense 
true ;  no  doubt  the  industrial  age,  for  example,  was  a 
divine  intention,  so  that  in  this  sense  even  the  most  un- 


100  The  Place  of  Landscape  Painting 

lovely  life  in  the  hideous  streets  of  Oldham  and  Rochdale 
deserves  study  for  its  interest  as  a  necessary  phase  of 
human  evolution.  But  the  artistic  instinct  turns  away  from 
this.  The  artistic  instinct  is  warned  that  such  phases  of 
human  life  do  not  concern  it.  They  concern  thinkers  and 
rulers,  not  artists. 

For  there  is  no  beauty  there.  Long  rows  of  cottages, 
whose  monotonous  brick  fronts  are  dark  with  soot ;  heaps 
of  ashes  on  the  black  acre  of  building  ground  yet  unoccu- 
pied ;  foiil  ordure  visible  everywhere ;  filthy  children  play- 
ing amongst  it  with  bits  of  broken  pot ;  behind  the  cottages 
a  roaring  factory,  six  or  seven  stories  high,  its  vast  mo- 
notonous wall  pierced  with  a  hundred  windows,  all  alike, 
and  all  ugly  —  half  an  acre  of  ugliness,  set  up  vertically 
against  the  sky,  to  bar  the  sunshine  out;  great  chimney- 
stalks  for  towers,  —  ay,  fifty  of  them  within  a  mile,  — 
pouring  opaque  clouds  of  foul  coal-smoke  into  the  vitiated 
atmosphere  ;  —  no  human  beauty  left  there  that  has  not 
been  marred  beyond  recognition  by  the  life  the  men  and 
women  lead  there  from  infancy  ;  no  costume  but  shapeless 
fustian  for  the  men,  having  neither  grace  nor  gayety  ;  and 
long  straight  pinafores  for  the  factory  girls,  bound  round 
their  waists  with  greasy  leathern  belts. 

To  any  one  having  the  sense  of  beauty,  —  and  all  true 
artists  have  it,  —  nothing  can  well  be  more  depressing 
than  the  influences  of  such  a  scene.  The  heart  sinks,  the 
sight  suffers  under  them.  Yet  within  the  distance  of  a 
day's  ramble  there  are  wild  moors  where  the  heather 
blooms,  and  little  dells  where  pure  streams  fall  over  rocks 
of  sandstone,  under  green  fern,  into  lucid  pools,  where  the 
crimson-spotted  trout  dart  swiftly. 

We  are  at  the  point  at  last.  That  street  under  the  fac- 
tory seems  less  Divine  than  this  solitude.  The  street  may 
have  a  more  tragic  interest,  and  some  wood-cut  designer, 
working  in  the  same  temper  as  Hood  when  he  wrote  the 
"  Song  of  the  Shirt,"  might  find  matter  there  for  his  note- 
book, but  he  must  be  a  man  caring  nothing  for  beauty  in 
comparison  with  human  interest,  —  that  is,  he  must  be  less 
an  artist  than  a  moralist. 


Amongst  the  Fine  Arts.  101 

One  day  I  was  in  the  cottage  of  a  factory  operative  in 
a  back  street  in  Rochdale.  The  young  man  who  was 
master  of  the  house  (they  marry  early  there)  was  in  a 
loud  agony  of  grief.  After  the  expiration  of  a  minute, 
some  men  brought  in  a  sack,  apparently  heavy ;  in  the 
sack  was  the  poor  lad's  young  wife,  dead.  The  sack  was 
opened,  and  the  supgeon  who  was  with  me  gave  the  deci- 
sive word,  "  Nothing  to  be  done."  It  was  a  most  impres- 
sive scene ;  the  dead  woman's  eyes  were  still  quite  bright, 
for  she  had  died  of  heart  disease,  most  suddenly,  ten  min- 
utes before,  and  her  face  was  by  nature  beautiful ;  but  the 
prosaic  character  of  all  the  accessories  quite  unfitted  the 
subject  for  pictorial  treatment.  It  would  have  done  for 
Cruikshank,  however. 

Nothing  turns  away  true  painters  from  human  life  so 
soon  as  the  loss  of  visible  dignity.  And  our  English  life, 
in  every  class,  has  lost  it.  Our  prosy  ugly  costume  and 
love  of  convenience  have  taken  away  all  grandeur  from 
our  visible  style  and  carriage.  Besides,  we  are  not  serious 
enough,  mentally,  to  deserve  the  attention  of  the  most 
serious  artists.  We  are  exactly  suited  for  the  caricaturist ; 
we  are  the  right  material  for  Doyle  and  Leech ;  taking  us 
at  the  best,  we  may  do  for  Frith,  but  we  should  not  much 
gratify  Titian  or  Velasquez. 

"  Chose  digne  d'attention  ! "  said  the  venerable  Delecluze, 
"c'est  lorsque  rien  n'est  plus  pris  au  serieux,  c'est  quand 
Thomme  en  est  arrive  a  rire  de  lui-meme  que  les  artistes, 
ainsi  que  les  poetes  qui  conservent  cependant  encore  le  sen- 
timent et  le  gout  des  grandes  choses,  las  de  chercher  en 
vain  dans  les  actions  des  hommes  quelque  chose  de  cette 
grandeur  dont  la  Bible,  dont  Homere  entre  autres  fournis- 
sent  tant  d'exemples,  rejettent  en  quelque  sorte  I'humanite 
comme  une  matiere  epuisee,  et  vont  chercher  dans  la  nature 
vegetale  et  dans  les  animaux  des  sujets  ou  la  vie  est  impar- 
faite,  mais  demeuree  pure  depuis  la  creation.  Comment 
expliquer  autrement  le  gout  de  Poussin  pour  la  solitude, 
le  soin  qu'il  a  pris  —  lui,  peintre  d'histoire  si  excellent,  de 
peindre  les  bois,  les  bords  ombreux  et  tristes  des  fleuves,  si 
ce  n'est  pas  ce  besoin  imperieux  qu'ont  les  grandes  ames  de 


102  The  Place  of  Landscape  Painting 

se  retremper  aux  sources  primitives  et  inalterables  de  la 
creation  ?  " 

Men  and  women  are  more  wonderful  than  mountains,  if 
in  the  overpowering  marvel  of  creation  one  thing  can  be 
called  more  wonderful  than  another,  when  all  are,  alike, 
utterly  incomprehensible  by  us.  But  men  and  women  have 
a  fatal  liberty  which  mountains  have  not.  They  have  the 
liberty  of  spoiling  themselves,  of  making  themselves  ugly, 
and  mean,  and  ridiculous.  They  tattoo  themselves  in  South 
Sea  islands  ;  what  they  do  in  North  Sea  islands  it  would 
be  more  prudent  not  to  particularize.  But  a  mountain  does 
not  know  how  to  be  ridiculous.  A  mountain  cannot  dress 
in  bad  taste.  Neither  is  it  capable  of  degrading  itself  by 
vice.  Noble  human  life  in  a  great  and  earnest  age  is  bet- 
ter artistic  material  than  wild  nature ;  but  human  life  in 
an  age  like  ours  is  not. 

Note  the  subjects  that  true  artists  choose  and  avoid,  and 
believe  that  their  instincts  lead  them  rightly.  If  they 
paint  men,  they  go  back  to  some  age  of  costume  and  dig- 
nity, or  else  to  some  golden  time  of  early  poetry,  when  the 
primitive  human  creature  fought  and  loved  under  the 
bright  sky  of  the  world's  youth.  Or,  if  it  is  contemporary 
life  that  they  choose,  they  choose  it  as  humble  as  possible, 
to  get  down  below  the  strata  which  vulgarity  permeates. 
Thus  a  noble  artist  will  gladly  paint  a  peasant  driving 
a  yoke  of  oxen,  but  not  a  commercial  traveller  in  his 

gig- 

I  have  said  so  much  in  other  places  about  the  popular 
ignorance  of  landscape,  that  it  would  be  tiresome  to  harp 
on  that  string  any  longer ;  but  any  one  who  is  habitually 
attentive  to  the  indications  which  show  the  state  of  culture 
on  a  subject  that  interests  him,  cannot  help  forming  an 
opinion,  more  or  less  favorable,  of  the  degree  to  which  it 
is  generally  understood.  What  is  to  be  regretted  in  the 
present  condition  o£  popular  information  about  landscape 
is  this  ;  landscape  painters  feel  no  confidence  in  the  public, 
whereas  an  artist  ought  always  to  feel  satisfied  that  if  he 
merits  acknowledgment  he  will  receive  it.  Here  is  a  little 
anecdote  to  the  point.  Last  autumn  I  found  myself  on  the 


Amongst  the  Fine  Arts.  103 

deck  of  a  steamer  plying  on  the  lake  of  Geneva.  It  was 
crowded  with  passengers,  and  just  as  we  got  past  Coppet, 
their  great  object  of  interest  was  Mont  Blanc.  A  white 
cloud  concealed  the  mountain,  and  all  the  passengers 
that  I  overheard  were  quite  certain  that  the  cloud  was 
Mont  Blanc  itself.  Shortly  afterwards  the'  snowy  crest 
became  visible,  and  then  they  believed  that  to  be  a  cjoud. 
This  mistake  would  have  been  impossible  if  they  had 
known  any  thing  about  landscape  ;  because,  although  clouds 
under  certain  unusual  circumstances  do  occasionally  look 
like  mountains,  that  particular  one  had  forms  so  entirely 
unlike  mountain  forms,  that  nobody  acquainted  with  moun- 
tain anatomy  could  have  made  the  mistake.  Such  little 
occurrences  as  this  are,  I  repeat,  discouraging  to  a  land- 
scape painter.  Here  were  many  gentlemen  and  ladies,  rich 
enough  to  travel,  who  could  not  recognize  a  mountain  when 
actually  set  there  before  them ;  how,  then,  should  they 
render  justice  to  the  same  thing  in  a  picture  ?  They  used 
telescopes  and  opera-glasses  ;  but  no  trained  eye  would 
have  needed  a  telescope  ;  that  sharp,  delicate  outline  of  the 
snow  would  have  been  enough  for  it. 

The  reader  is  not  aware,  perhaps,  that  some  figure 
painters  even  deny  to  landscape  the  right  to  exist  as  an 
independent  art  at  all.  Landscape  is  very  good,  they  say,  for 
backgrounds,  but  it  was  never  intended  as  any  thing  else 
than  a  foil  to  human  or  animal  life.  The  doctrine  may  be 
shown  to  be  untenable  by  reminding  the  reader  that  there 
exist,  in  all  scenic  nature,  magnificent  compositions,  any 
one  of  which  would  be  entirely  destroyed  by  the  interven- 
tion of  a  large  figure  or  animal  in  the  foreground.  No 
one  who  is  familiar  with  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  or 
Switzerland,  or  even  with  our  English  lake  district,  would 
desire  to  hand  over  pictures  of  their  most  striking  scenes 
to  a  historical  painter  in  order  to  have  figures  of  large  size 
painted  upon  them.  Surely  there  are  scenes  in  nature 
complete  enough  to  deserve  a  few  square  feet  of  canvas  to 
themselves.! 

A  theory  more  commonly  received  is  the  following.  It 
is  urged  that  no  scene  in  nature  is  worth  painting  without 


104  The  Place  of  Landscape  Painting 

some  direct  reference  to  humanity;  that  nature  without 
human  interest  is  devoid  of  artistic  value. 

This  is  one  of  those  questions  which  cannot  be  settled  in 
any  definite  way  for  the  whole  body  of  spectators.  If  you 
say  that  pure  nature  has  no  artistic  interest,  you  speak 
truly,  no  doubt,  so  far  as  your  own  feelings  are  concerned, 
but  \  cannot  admit  that  your  proposition  is  universally 
true,  because  pure  nature  has  an  infinite  artistic  interest  for 
me,  and  therefore  probably  for  others  who  are  similarly 
constituted.  It  is  from  the  belief  that  I  am  on  this  point 
the  spokesman  of  a  considerable  class  that  I  venture  to 
explain  this  sentiment  more  in  detail.  We  who  love  pure 
nature  are  not  indifferent  to  humanity.  We  may,  as 
thinkers  and  moralists,  take  the  keenest  possible  interest  in 
human  affairs,  but  we  perceive  that  in  this  age  men  and 
their  dwellings  are  not  usually  objects  of  much  artistic 
interest  both  because  they  have  so  little  beauty,  and  what 
is  a  far  graver  deficiency,  so  little  sublimity.  In  these 
respects  the  loneliest  defiles  of  the  Alps  are  better  than 
the  hotels  and  tourists  of  Chamonix.  Indeed  Switzerland, 
in  our  view,  is  as  nearly  as  possible  spoiled  by  its  visitors. 
In  like  manner  we  believe  the  valleys  of  Lancashire  and 
Yorkshire,  the  beautiful  vale  of  Todmorden,  for  example, 
to  be  (artistically)  ruined  by  factories,  and  rows  of  cottages, 
and  railways,  and  excellent  turnpike  roads.  We  have  no 
objection  to  an  old  castle,  we  consider  the  head  of  Loch 
Awe  to  be  improved  by  Kilchurn ;  but  we  cannot  admire 
the  modern  castles  of  Ta)  mouth  and  Inverary,  much  as  we 
may  respect  the  families  of  Breadalbane  and  Argyll.  In 
short,  when  the  human  interest  increases  the  pictorial  value 
of  the  locality,  as  mediaeval  fortifications  do,  we  are  glad  to 
have  it,  but  when  it  diminishes  the  pictorial  value,  as  almost 
all  modern  buildings  and  engineering  works  do,  we  prefer 
wild  nature. 

It  remains  only  to  indicate  what,  in  the  present  writer's 
opinion,  ought  to  be  the  chief  aims  of  landscape  painting, 
and  what  position  is  due  to  it.  Its  great  object  as  an  art 
ought  to  be  the  faithful  rendering  of  the  spirit  and  charac- 
ter of  natural  scenery  and  interesting  localities.  Any 


Amongst  the  Fine  Arts.  105 

accuracy  is  worthless  which  does  not  express  character ; 
every  inaccuracy  is  to  be  praised  which  helps  to  express  it 
better.  Every  thing  in  landscape  art  ought  to  contribute 
to  render,  with  the  most  striking  fidelity,  not  merely  the 
scene,  but  that  which  is  far  deeper  and  more  divine,  the 
spirit  of  the  scene.  And  here,  I  am  bound  to  observe, 
many  of  our  most  popular  artists  fail,  and  they  fail  from  a 
dread  of  producing  strange-looking  pictures.  If  you  paint 
local  character,  your  work  is  sure  to  have  peculiarities 
which  will  fail  to  correspond  with  the  vague  general  ideas 
that  exist  on  the  subject  of  landscape,  and  therefore  you 
are  likely  to  offend.  A  well-known  and  most  experienced 
dealer  said  to  me  one  day,  in  all  friendliness,  "If  you  paint 
a  truth  which  one  spectator  has  not  seen  in  nature,  you 
make  that  man  your  enemy."  A  recent  critic,  speaking  of 
an  artist  of  real  genius,  Mr.  E.  B.  Jones,  said,  what  was  true, 
that  his  works  pleased  some  and  offended  others  ;  but  then  the 
critic  proceeded  to  mention  another  artist,  of  whom  he  said, 
with  understood  allusion  to  Mr.  E.  B.  Jones,  that  this  man 
"  trod  on  nobody's  toes."  To  paint,  then,  in  a  manner  not 
agreeable  to  the  spectator,  is  resented  by  him  as  a  personal 
annoyance  and  injury,  —  a  treading  on  the  toes.  Now  it  is 
very  desirable  that  a  more  liberal  view  should  prevail.  If 
the  works  of  an  artist  do  not  please  you,  pass  on  to  those 
of  another  whom  you  like  better,  and  try  to  believe  that 
there  is  no  intention  to  hurt  or  offend  you  on  the  part  of 
the  painter  you  dislike.  In  all  probability  he  has  been 
aiming  at  some  quality  he  thinks  desirable ;  perhaps  he  has 
not  attained  the  quality,  but  is  on  the  road  to  it.  It  is  not 
his  interest  to  give  offence ;  he  would  be  ten  times  happier 
to  give  pleasure ;  but  he  is  trying  to  accomplish  something 
that  he  sees  clearly  enough,  no  doubt,  yet  which  it  is  not  to 
be  expected  that  we  should  see  until  he  has  fully  set  it  forth. 
I  may  have  insisted  upon  this  somewhat  importunately  ;  I 
may  have  offended  by  praising  the  truth  that  gives  offence, 
but  no  art  doctrine  has  need  of  more  frequent  reiteration 
than  this,  Local  truth  should  be  held  sacred  and  inviolable. 
I  do  not  mean  that  we  ought  to  confine  ourselves  to  rigid 
topography,  but  that  local  character  ought  to  be  everywhere 


106  The  Place  of  Landscape  Painting 

affectionately  studied,  thoroughly  understood,  faithfully 
though  freely  rendered.  And  there  is  the  more  need  to 
preach  this  doctrine  that  many  critics  have  a  lofty  scorn  of 
local  truth,  as  something  opposed  to  the  true  spirit  of  art 
and  incompatible  with  noble  work.  For  example,  because 
Gustave  Dore  went  into  Spain  before  illustrating  Don 
Quixote,  a  well-known  French  critic  thought  it  the  right 
thing  to  say  that  the  work  would  have  been  better  if  Dore 
had  not  seen  Spain. 

I  would  entreat  the  reader  to  use  all  his  influence  in 
favor  of  that  kind  of  landscape  which  really  means  some- 
thing and  expresses  something.  If  a  painter,  by  the  side  of 
some  French  river,  is  struck  by  some  long  monotonous  line  of 
poplars,  do  not  find  fault  with  the  monotony,  but  thank  him 
for  it ;  it  is  the  spirit  of  the  place.  If  another  painter  far 
in  the  Scottish  hills  reproduces  the  sadness  and  solitude  of 
their  dear  humble,  barren  crests,  grey  and  purple  in  the 
chilly  twilight,  do  not  find  fault  with  the  melancholy  and 
loneliness  of  his  work ;  it  ought  to  be  melancholy  and 
lonely,  for  that  was  the  spirit  of  the  scene. 

It  is  generally  a  waste  of  time  to  trouble  ourselves  much 
about  classifications  of  painters  according  to  subjects ;  the 
points  of  real  importance  are  the  qualities  of  the  individual 
artist.  Any  one  who  has  the  true  critical  faculty  can  easily 
recognize  great  powers  in  the  treatment  of  very  simple 
subjects.  It  is  those  powers  by  which  an  artist  takes  his 
place.  And  whatever  branch  of  art  a  man  may  have 
chosen,  if  he  has  contrived  to  make  first-rate  gifts  manifest 
in  his  work,  I  put  him  in  the  first  rank.  The  phrases 
"simple  paysagiste"  and  "mere  landscape  painter"  imply 
that  criticism  is  a  much  easier  business  than  it  really  is. 
Truly,  if  the  rank  of  artists  might  be  settled  by  the  kind 
of  subjects  they  paint,  anybody  might  be  an  art  critic. 
The  real  difficulty  of  criticism  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  most 
splendid  artistic  faculties  may  be  lavished  on  apparently 
humble  work,  and  a  good  critic  is  neither  to  be  dazzled  by 
ambition  in  the  choice  of  a  subject,  nor  turned  aside  from 
what  is  good  and  able  because  it  does  not  happen  to  be  at 
the  same  time  pretentious. 


Amongst  the  Fine  Arts.  107 

The  strong  point  of  landscape  is  its  power  of  affecting 
the  feelings  by  influences  very  difficult  to  define  in  words. 
Music  also  has  nameless  powers,  and,  as  a  writer  lately 
observed  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine,  there  is  some  resem- 
blance between  the  way  landscape  painting  and  musical 
compositions  move  us. 

I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  communicative  powers 
of  musical  sounds  are  habitually  underrated.  They  de- 
serve passing  allusion  here  in  connection  with  landscape 
painting,  because  music,  like  landscape  art,  is  not  strictly 
what  is  called  an  intellectual  pursuit,  and  is  held  in 
exceedingly  low  estimation  by  all  who  are  insensible  to 
it.  But  may  not  these  vague  musical  expressions  of 
thought  and  feeling  be  the  only  expression  possible  for 
those  thoughts  and  those  feelings  ?  I  have  often  felt  whilst 
listening  to  great  music  that  something  was  thereby  com- 
municated to  me  which  could  not  reach  me  through  any 
other  channel.  Literary  expression  is  no  doubt  more 
practical  and  positive ;  but  are  we  quite  sure  that  it  is 
higher,  merely  because  it  is  more  definite?  The  same 
narrow  spirit  of  classification  which  roughly  sets  down 
landscape  as  unmeaning,  would  put  music  below  poetry ; 
but  the  more  we  understand  it,  the  more  embarrassing  it 
appears  to  settle  its  place.  It  may  be  that  music  expres- 
ses aspirations  that  words  cannot  express,  and  these  as- 
pirations may  very  possibly  be  higher  than  those  we  utter 
verbally. 

If  the  peculiar  strength  of  landscape  lies  in  this  vague 
kind  of  influence,  that  of  figure  painting  is  to  be  sought 
in  dramatic  expression.  Thus,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to 
compare  one  man  of  genius  with  another,  we  might  say 
that  Leslie  was  a  successor  of  Pope  and  Goldsmith,  whilst 
Millais  is  the  younger  brother  of  Tennyson  and  Keats, 
whereas  Turner  might  be  better  compared  with  some  very 
great  musician,  as  Beethoven,  though  my  knowledge  of 
Beethoven's  music  is  not  yet  complete  enough  for  me  to 
know  positively  how  far  such  a  comparison  would  be 
reasonable. 

As  to  the  rank  which  landscape  painting  ought  to  hold 


108  The  Place  of  Landscape  Painting 

amongst  the  fine  arts,  I  claim  for  it  simple  independence. 
One  of  my  critics  said  that  I  seemed  to  rank  it  above 
figure  painting,  but  that  such  would  never  be  the  general 
opinion.  This  is  one  of  those  misinterpretations  to  which 
every  public  writer  is  liable.  Some  previous  writers  have 
treated  landscape  with  contempt,  and  I  say  that  it  does 
not  deserve  contempt ;  therefore  it  is  inferred  that  I  set 
up  landscape  art  above  figure  art.  The  inference  is  en- 
tirely unwarranted.  If  any  one  asserts  that  landscape  is 
easy,  that  it  is  a  mindless  copyism  of  dead  matter,  I  am 
ready  to  answer  him  that  it  is  difficult,  and  that,  when 
good,  it  is  a  mindful  interpretation  of  mind  ;  that  is  to  say, 
an  interpretation  by  human  genius  of  the  Mind  that  crea- 
ted the  world.  But  the  idea  of  giving  precedence  to 
artists  according  to  the  subjects  they  choose,  seems  to  me 
so  unpractical,  so  inapplicable,  so  deficient  in  the  simplest 
elements  of  common  sense,  that  it  never  once  occurred  to 
me  to  entertain  it. 

The  fact  will  always  remain,  that  men  take  a  keener 
interest  in  each  other  than  in  the  external  world,  and  so 
naturally  pay  most  attention  to  the  art  which  deals  with 
man.  Perhaps,  too,  our  love  of  landscape  is  in  great  part 
due  to  a  repulsion  from  the  present  unartistic  and  unlovely 
aspect  of  humanity.  In  an  age  when  men  and  architec- 
ture are  fit  only  to  be  caricatured,  artists  who  have  not 
the  peculiar  faculty  of  the  caricaturist  naturally  go  to 
external  nature  and  the  life  of  animals  or  peasants.  But 
if,  in  the  future,  man  and  his  dwellings  should  again  become 
noble  and  interesting,  will  not  artists  turn  to  him  and  them 
again,  and  neglect  the  forests  and  mountains  ?  There  is 
some  chance  of  this. 

Meanwhile  we  have  the  beauty  of  the  earth,  and  its 
grandeur.  But  can  we  paint  its  grandeur  ?  Is  it  wise  to 
desert  the  common  pastoral  subjects  of  Claude  and  Cuyp 
for  the  snowy  crests  that  dazzled  the  eyes  of  Calame? 
M.  Delaborde  doubts  this ;  he  does  not  exactly  admit  that 
art  may  deal  with  the  extraordinary  in  landscape.  He  is 
right  in  one  point,  I  think.  Painting,  even  the  truest,  is 
a  kind  of  fiction ;  and  it  is  admitted  that  fiction  cannot 


Amongst  the  Fine  Arts.  109 

quite  safely  deal  with  extraordinary  truth,  because  it  ap- 
peals to  the  recognition  of  the  fidelity  of  its  representation, 
and  few  can  recognize  what  is  rare  in  nature.  So  far,  it 
may  be  admitted  that  Troyon,  for  instance,  was  wiser  than 
Calame.  But  I  object  to  M.  Delaborde's  idea  that  Alpine 
scenery  is  more  "irregular"  than  commonplace  landscape; 
and  I  object  also  to  another  theory  of  his,  that  such  scenery 
lies  out  of  the  conditions  of  portraiture.  Alpine  scenery 
may  not  be  familiar  to  Parisians,  but  it  is  strictly  natural, 
strictly  under  the  influence  of  law,  and  of  very  wonderful 
and  beautiful  laws  too  ;  indeed,  the  laws  of  earth  structure 
can  nowhere  be  seen  more  plainly  than  in  Switzerland, 
where,  from  flat  diluvial  ground  to  Alpine  aiguilles,  you 
can  study  every  manifestation  of  the  energy  of  the  earth. 
And  as  to  the  objection  that  the  Alps  lie  out  of  the  condi- 
tions of  portraiture,  let  this  little  anecdote  answer  it.  Not 
very  long  ago,  I  entered  Martigny  in  the  evening  from  the 
Forclaz.  A  nameless  mountain  rose  before  me,  but  I  knew 
it  instantly  from  a  drawing  of  Ruskin's.  I  had  quite  for- 
gotten the  locality  of  the  drawing,  but  on  returning  home 
I  looked  through  "  Modern  Painters  "  and  found  it.  The 
real  truth  is,  that  every  mountain  has  features  of  its  own 
which  bring  it  within  the  conditions  of  portraiture  quite 
as  much  as  a  man's  face ;  but  faithful  landscape  is  too 
modern  to  obtain  recognition,  as  yet,  from  orthodox  criti- 
cism, which  always  makes  a  point  of  being  a  century  or 
two  behind  its  age. 

Of  Calame's  degree  of  success  in  Alpine  landscape  I 
have  not  space  to  speak  here  with  justice  ;  but,  considering 
what  had  been  done  before  him,  he  was  a  discoverer  in 
art.  What  is  more  to  our  present  purpose  is  the  compari- 
son instituted  by  M.  Delaborde  between  Flandrin  and 
Calame,  so  much  to  the  disparagement  of  the  latter.  This 
is  only  one  instance  the  more  of  the  extreme  difficulty  of 
obtaining  in  landscape  any  thing  like  that  serious  kind  of 
consideration  awarded  to  distinguished  figure  painters. 
Calame  deserved  this  if  ever  anv  one  did.  He  was  quite 
as  earnest  as  Flandjin,  and  quite  as  pure  and  devoted  a 
genius.  Calame  had  the  highest  aims,  and  in  great  part 


110  The  Place  of  Landscape  Painting 

realized  them  ;  so  indeed  had  also  Flandrin.  But  Cal- 
ame  practised  an  art  which  did  not  admit  of  the  direct 
display  of  those  human  sympathies  which  most  surely 
reach  the  heart  of  humanity.  Flandrin  painted  saints  and 
princes ;  Calame  gave  the  energy  of  a  life  to  the  chilling 
sublimities  of  nature. 

Closely  connected  with  the  dislike  to  extraordinary 
scenery  is  the  dislike  to  extraordinary  effects.  The  spec- 
tator's impression  on  looking  at  a  picture  in  which  one  of 
these  effects  is  attempted  appears  to  be  frequently  some- 
thing of  this  kind  :  "  The  artist  is  amusing  himself  at  my 
expense :  "  or  else,  "  The  artist  means  to  read  me  a  lesson 
on  my  own  ignorance ; "  and  in  either  case  a  feeling  of 
rebellion  or  resentment  arises.  The  simple  truth  is,  that 
effects  are  the  life  of  landscape,  and  that  the  most  power- 
ful of  them  are  the  moments  when  this  life  is  carried  to 
its  utmost  pitch  and  paroxysm  of  intensity.  Such  effects 
are  necessarily  rare,  as  the  crises  of  passion  are  rare  in 
the  soul  of  man  ;  but  no  one  knows  a  landscape  who  has 
not  seen  it  under  a  noble  effect,  just  as  no  one  knows  a 
human  being  who  has  not  seen  him  in  a  moment  of  su- 
preme excitement.  And  again,  not  only  for  their  intensity 
of  life  are  the  noble  effects  observed  and  valued,  but  still 
more  for  their  great  artistic  quality  of  synthesis.  A  fine 
effect  is  pictorially  complete  ;  a  common  effect  is  usually 
scattered  and  comparatively  unmeaning :  a  fine  effect  has 
large  masses  and  vigorous  oppositions  ;  a  common  effect 
is  apt  to  be  broken  and  feeble,  requiring  much  artistic 
faculty  in  the  painter  himself  to  get  a  synthetic  whole  out 
of  it.  And  it  is  especially  natural  that  coloiists  should 
like  the  rare  effects  because  they  always  give  magnificent 
arrangements  of  color.  Intense  gold  and  purple  are  to  be 
seen  on  the  horizon  of  hilly  countries  for  ten  minutes  at 
a  time,  on  perhaps  twenty  evenings  in  a  year  ;  rich  crimson 
and  fiery  scarlet  still  more  rarely.  A  landscape  painter 
who  loves  gold  and  purple,  or  crimson  and  scarlet,  is  there- 
fore very  naturally  led  to  attempt  these  rare  effects.  A 
figure  painter  who  loves  the  same  colors  may  introduce  them 
whenever  he  chooses  by  means  of  draperies  and  accessories. 


Amongst  the  Fine  Arts.  Ill 

As  to  the  prudence  of  attempting  these  effects,  no  doubt 
that  is  another  question.  If  we  cannot  paint  plain  day- 
light, it  is  useless  to  attempt  these  splendors.  But  no 
young  landscape  painter  would  be  worth  much  who  did 
not  long  to  try  for  them ;  and  even  a  few  failures  may  be 
better  for  him  than  placid  contentment  with  sober  green 
and  grey. 

The  worst  of  adopting  landscape  as  a  means  of  expres- 
sing yourself  is  the  difficulty,  not  of  putting  intelligence 
and  feeling  into  your  work,  for  landscape  will  absorb  any 
quantity  of  both,  out  of  getting  credit  for  them  when  there. 
It  may  be  answered,  that  painters  ought  to  be  above  the 
desire  for  public  recognition,  above  the  vanity  which  can- 
not live  without  praise.  But  we  may  observe  that  not 
painters  only,  but  all  men,  need  recognition  in  their  avo- 
cations to  enable  them  to  work  cheerfully.  It  is  not  praise 
and  fame  they  want  so  much  as  the  satisfaction  of  feeling 
that  the  amount  of  mind  they  put  into  their  work  will 
reach  others.  Nothing  is  more  cruelly  discouraging  to  an 
intellectual  and  feeling  workman  than  the  sense  that  an 
obstruction  exists  between  his  mind  and  the  mind  of  the 
public. 

This  may  serve  to  account  for  the  fact,  that  whereas  we 
have  in  England,  at  the  present  day,  at  least  a  dozen  most 
excellent  landscape  painters,  and  twenty  or  thirty  really 
good  ones,  we  hear  on  every  side  complaints  of  the  deca- 
dent condition  of  landscape.  Now  it  is  a  positive  truth 
that  the  average  merit  of  landscape  work  has  never  been 
so  high  or  any  thing  like  so  high  as  it  is  now.  But  a  few 
years  since  a  great  commotion  was  made  about  the  works 
of  Turner,  and  the  brilliant  advocacy  of  a  distinguished 
writer  directed,  for  a  time,  public  attention  to  the  branch 
of  the  art  which  Turner  professed.  Since  then  the  public 
mind  has  reverted  to  its  natural  channel,  and  even  great 
landscape  painters  have  no  chance  of  obtaining  that  degree 
of  attention  which  is  freely  accorded  to  third-rate  painters 
of  a  figure.  Lee  Bridell  awoke  a  little  murmur  of  fame 
before  he  died,  and  a  few  were  aware  that  a  noble  career 
had  been  cut  short  in  its  early  prime  ;  but  the  busy  world 


112  The  Place  of  Landscape  Painting. 

was  ignorant  of  its  loss.  The  imperial  biographer  of  Caesar 
has  read  the  nations  a  lesson  on  their  want  of  confidence 
in  that  order  of  genius  which  must  subjugate  before  it  can 
improve;  yet  it  is  not  unnatural  that  we  should  fail  to  rec- 
ognize benefactors  who  begin  by  requiring  us  to  be  slaves. 
An  ingratitude  far  less  excusable  is  that  which  repels  a 
benefit  accompanied  by  no  condition,  and  turns  away  coldly 
from  the  kindly  teaching  which  would  lay  no  yoke  upon 
us  but  the  thrall  of  a  sweet  pleasure  that  never  knew 
repentance. 


Relation  between  Photography  and  Painting.   113 


V. 


THE  RELATION  BETWEEN   PHOTOGRAPHY  AND 
PAINTING. 

TN  the  course  of  the  first  volume,  I  promised  to  state,  be- 
fore concluding  the  work,  whatever  opinions  I  might 
be  able  to  form  on  this  question  of  the  relation  between 
photography  and  painting. 

I  may  now  venture  to  offer  such  results  as  I  have  been 
able  to  arrive  at. 

I  feel,  however,  a  little  embarrassed  at  the  outset  by 
doubts  as  to  the  degree  of  information  on  these  subjects 
which  I  may  prudently  presuppose  on  the  part  of  the 
reader.  I  hesitate  between  writing  in  a  manner  intel- 
ligible only  to  persons  already  in  possession  of  the 
most  commonly  known  facts  concerning  the  two  arts, 
whose  mutual  relation  I  purpose  to  examine,  and  writing 
in  another,  and  more  elementary  manner,  which  may  bet- 
ter suit  the  general  reader,  but  render  this  chapter  intoler- 
ably tedious  to  an  informed  one. 

It  seems  best  to  err  on  the  side  of  clearness  and  prolix- 
ity. For  it  would  be  idle  to  expect,  on  the  part  of  persons 
not  actively  occupied  in  these  arts,  a  sufficient  degree  of 
information  to  make  a  technical  essay  intelligible  to  them. 
I  have  very  good  grounds  for  believing  that  there  are  few 
persons  living  in  England  (in  proportion  to  the  population), 
who  really  know  what  photography  is ;  and,  probably,  still 
fewer  who  are  aware  what  compromises,  and  concessions, 
and  subtle  artifices  are  necessary  to  the  construction  of 
any  thing  like  a  good  picture.  I  find  the  general  impres- 
sion about  photography  to  be  that  it  is  as  perfect  as  a 
reflection  of  the  scene  in  a  mirror,  with  the  single  deficiency 
of  color  ;  and  the  common  notion  of  painting  seems  to  be 
even  less  accurate  than  that,  for  it  entirely  ignores  the 

8 


114  The  Relation  between 

most  refined  art  of  the  artist,  without  which  painting  could 
only  imitate  what  is  imitable  in  nature,  and  never  aspire  to 
interpret  what  is  beyond  all  human  imitation. 

And,  therefore,  I  will  first  try  to  explain  what  photog- 
raphy is. 

Photography  is  the  blackening  and  decomposition  of 
a  salt  by  some  of  the  solar  rays. 

"  It  is  drawing  by  light,"  says  some  etymologist  who 
has  not  yet  forgotten  his  Greek. 

Pardon  me,  it  is  not  drawing  by  light,  and  the  word 
photography  is  a  misnomer.  If  a  photograph  were  really 
drawn  by  the  luminous  rays,  it  would  be  far  truer  than  it 
is.  Mr.  Hardwich  has  clearly  distinguished  between  the 
luminous  and  actinic  rays,  or  the  rays  which  produce  what 
*we  call  light,  and  those  which  effect  the  chemical  changes 
we  foolishly  call  "  photography."  He  says,  in  his  "  Pho- 
tographic Chemistry"  (Fourth  Edition,  p.  61),  "The 
actinic  and  luminous  rays  are  totally  distinct  from  each 
other,  and  the  word  '  photography,'  which  signifies  the 
process  of  taking  pictures  by  light  is,  in  reality  inaccu- 
rate." And,  again  (page  62),  "  In  exemplifying  further 
the  importance  of  distinguishing  between  visual  and 
actinic  rays  of  light,  we  may  observe,  that,  if  the  two 
were  in  all  respects  the  same,  photography  must  cease  to 
exist  as  an  art.  It  would  be  impossible  to  make  use  of 
the  more  sensitive  chemical  preparations,  from  the  diffi- 
culties which  would  attend  the  previous  preparation  and 
subsequent  development  of  the  plates.  These  operations 
are  now  condupted  in  what  is  termed  a  dark  room;  but 
it  is  dark  only  in  a  photographic  sense,  being  illuminated  by 
means  of  yellow  light  which,  whilst  it  enables  the  operator 
easily  to  watch  the  progress  of  the  work  produces  no 
injurious  effect  upon  the  sensitive  surfaces." 

Photography  having  been  ascertained  to  be  the  black- 
ening and  decomposition  of  a  salt  by  some  of  the  solar 
rays,  the  next  question  of  importance  is  how  these  rays 
blacken  it. 

And  here  it  is  necessary  to  say  a  little  about  Nature's  light. 

Let  one  million  represent  the  sun,  the  brightest  thing 


Photography  and  Painting.  115 

we  know,  and  the  unit  represent  the  blackness  of  night, 
the  blackest  black  we  know.  If  we  take  this  as  repre- 
sentative of  Nature's  scale  of  light  and  dark,  the  most 
extensive  scale  attainable  on  paper  may  be  from  a  dark 
five  hundred  times  lighter  than  Nature's  dark,  to  a  light 
a  thousand  times  darker  than  Nature's  light,  or  some- 
where between  the  figures  500  and  1000. 

So  that  to  represent  Nature's  million  degrees  we  have, 
let  us  say,  about  five  hundred  degrees. 

Nature  is  very  rich  and  Art  very  poor.  Nature  has  a 
million  to  spend  where  Art  has  five  hundred.  What  is 
the  most  prudent  thing  for  poor  Art  to  do  ?  There  are 
two  ways  of  imitating  Nature.  Art  may  spend  side  by 
side  with  Nature,  degree  for  degree  of  light,  coin  for  coin, 
till  all  her  resources  are  exhausted,  and  then  confess  her- 
self bankrupt.  Or  she  may  establish  a  scale  of  expendi- 
ture suited  to  her  limited  resources ;  and,  abandoning  all 
hope  of  rivalry  with  Nature,  set  herself  to  the  humbler 
task  of  interpreting  her. 

And  here  is  the  first  essential  difference  between  pho- 
tography and  painting ;  a  difference  which,  of  itself,  is 
sufficient  to  separate  them  for  ever. 

Poor  Photography  spends  degree  for  degree  with  rich 
Nature,  and  of  course,  is  very  soon  exhausted  ;  but  poor 
Painting  husbands  her  little  resources,  and  spends  a 
penny  for  light  where  Nature  spends  a  pound. 

All  photographs,  therefore,  which  attempt  to  copy  Na- 
ture's effects  of  light,  lose  themselves  either  in  a  vacuity 
of  light  or  a  vacuity  of  shade. 

Here  is  another  illustration,  but  not  so  good  a  one  as 
the  preceding,  because  it  does  not  sufficiently  set  forth 
the  enormous  difference  in  scale  between  nature  and  the 
photograph. 

Nature's  power  of  light  is  like  a  great  organ  with  all 
its  vast  range  of  octaves.  The  photograph's  power  of 
light  is,  iii  comparison,  something  like  a  voice,  but  a 
voice  of  extremely  limited  compass. 

How  is  the  voice  to  follow  the  organ  in  an  exercise  on 
the  scales  ? 


116  The  Relation  between 

The  voice  will  sing  its  own  notes  in  the  places  where 
they  occur,  but  must  ignore  all  the  rest. 

This  is  exactly  the  way  the  photograph  imitates  nature. 
And  when  Nature  plays  only  in  the  middle  of  her  scale, 
photography  would  follow  her  with  much  accuracy  if  it 
were  not  for  that  fact  about  the  excited  film  being  in- 
sensitive to  yellow  rays. 

Now,  what  is  painting  ? 

It  is  an  intellectual  and  emotional  interpretation  of 
nature  by  means  of  carefully  balanced  and  cunningly 
subdivided  hues.  Its  powers  of  imitation  are  extremely 
limited.  However,  the  eye  of  the  painter,  instead  of 
being  insensible  to  every  thing  that  is  yellow,  is  as  sensi- 
tive to  gold  and  orange  as  to  blue,  so  that  in  this  respect 
he  may  do  truer  work.  And  in  his  way  of  interpreting 
nature's  light,  he  has  opportunities  of  compromise  and 
compensation  which  the  unthinking  photograph  cannot 
have.  So  he  gets  more  truths. 

With  a  view  to  ascertain  something  of  the  relative 
power  of  light  in  nature  and  art,  I  have  made  a  few 
simple  experiments  which  the  reader  may  easily  repeat 
for  his  own  satisfaction.* 

People  cannot  see  either  pictures  or  photographs  in 
full  out-of-door  sunshine.  They  see  them  best,  and  they 
see  them  habitually,  in  quiet,  dull  daylight  without 
sunshine. 

The  sun  in  a  picture  is  usually  made  of  a  little  flake 
white,  mixed  with  Naples  or  other  yellow. 

*  This  comparison  of  light  in  nature  and  in  art  contains  nothing  new, 
except  the  illustrations;  for  the  question  has  been  well  stated  already  by 
Mr.  Kuskin.  His  statement  of  the  superiority  of  nature  in  power  of  light 
is  so  far  from  being  exaggerated  that  it  is  considerably  within  the  truth, 
though  I  dare  say  astonishing  enough  to  most  of  his  readers.  .All  this 
has,  of  course,  been  known  to  artists  for  generations ;  at  any  rate  since 
Claude's  time,  who,  having  tried  to  paint  the  sun,  must  have  found  out 
that  it  was  brighter  than  white  lead.  Nor  is  it  probable  that  our  modern 
artists  any  more  than  Claude  owe  their  knowledge  of  these  facts  to  Mr. 
Ruskin,  whose  works,  I  am  really  sorry  to  say,  are  very  little  read  by 
painters.  A  few  of  them  have  read  the  first  volume  of  "Modern 
rainters,"  but  I  have  not  yet  met  with  one  who  had  got  through  the 
second ;  and  as  this  statement  about  light  occurs  in  the  fourth,  it  is  as  if 
it  had  never  been  published  at  all,  so  far  as  they  are  concerned. 


Photography  and  Painting.  117 

The  whitest  flake  white  is  not  so  white  as  snow. 

During  the  winter  months  I  have  obtained  a  great  many 
memoranda  of  mountain  snow.  On  looking  over  these 
memoranda  I  find  that  when  not  illuminated  by  direct  sun- 
shine the  snow  is  in  many  instances  considerably  darker 
than  the  sky ;  darker  even  than  gray  clouds. 

And  yet  I  know  that  the  flake  white  I  have  to  imitate 
snow  in  sunshine  with  is,  in  reality,  itself  darker  than  snow 
in  shadow. 

Our  whitest  white  is  darker  than  many  of  Nature's 
ordinary  blues  and  greens  and  reds. 

And  our  blackest  black  is  lighter  than  many  of  Nature's 
grays. 

This  last  fact  is  easily  ascertained.  Hang  a  common 
black  cloth  dress  coat  on  a  stand  out  of  doors  any  moon- 
less night,  so  as  to  bring  it  against  the  sky.  Throw  the 
light  of  a  lamp  upon  it,  and  you  will  find  your  black  cloth 
coat,  the  blackest  thing  you  have,  a  great  deal  lighter  than 
a  clear  starlit  sky. 

And  this  experiment  gives  a  result  infinitely  below  the 
truth.  A  fairer  way  would  be  to  cast  some  rays  of  electric 
light  on  the  coat,  because,  as  everybody  knows,  who  has 
walked  in  the  streets  at  night,  even  gaslight  is  immeasur- 
ably below  ordinary  clouded  daylight,  such  as  we  require 
for  seeing  pictures. 

Well,  but  though  the  sky  is  darker  than  the  coat,  there 
are  some  clouds  visible  which,  in  their  turn,  are  con- 
siderably darker  than  the  sky.  And  the  mountain  under 
the  clouds  is  infinitely  darker  than  they  are.  So  here 
we  are  in  Nature's  bass  notes ;  and  no  art  can  get  down 
there.  . 

In  all  photographs  which  attempt  landscape,  and  include 
distant'  and  highly  illuminated  objects,  such  as  mountains 
and  the  sky,  the  sensitive  film  of  the  negative  has  always 
been  so  entirely  decomposed  by  Nature's  middle  degrees 
of  light  as  to  leave  no  room  for  farther  decomposition 
by  the  highest,  or  else  the  time  of  exposure  has  been 
insufficient  for  the  due  action  of  Nature's  lower  degrees 
of  light,  so  that  they  have  not  been  able  to  make  any 
impression. 


118  The  Relation  between 

The  consequence  of  this  in  the  positive,  with  which  the 
public  is  most  familiar,  is  that  all  Nature's  higher  notes 
are  lost  in  white  vacancy,  or  else  all  her  lower  notes  in 
black  or  brown  vacancy. 

Thus,  in  a  photograph  of  the  sea  ;  because  the  sea  is  a 
bright  object ;  if  we  want  to  have  the  glitter  of  the  wave 
we  must  expose  our  negative  so  very  short  a  time  that  any 
solid  objects  on  the  shore  will  take  no  effect  upon  it,  and  be 
left  blank. 

In  the  positive,  these  blank  objects  will,  of  course,  print 
as  brown  silhouettes. 

We  will  now  examine  a  few  photographs  by  the  ablest 
hands  to  see  whether  this  is  so.  And  then  we  will  exam- 
ine one  or  two  pictures  and  engravings  to  see  in  what 
manner  intellectual  art  contends  with  this  great  difficulty, 
and  how  far  the  human  intellect  has  found  means  to 
overcome  it. 

I  have  at  hand  a  portfolio  of  good  photographs  by  pro- 
fessional photographers,  and  a  portfolio  of  photographs, 
not  so  good,  done  by  myself.  These  will  afford  ample 
materials  for  our  investigation. 

One  of  the  best  photographs  of  the  sea,  which  I  have 
been  able  to  procure  in  Paris,  is  a  view  of  sea  and  sky, 
with  a  pier  and  light-house  at. the  spectator's  right.  It  is 
by  E.  Colliau,  and  is  entitled  "  La  Jetee."  The  negative 
has  been  exposed  a  very  short  time  indeed,  in  order  to 
preserve  the  light  on  the  clouds,  and  the  glitter  of  the  sun- 
shine on  the  water.  These  two  truths  are  accordingly 
obtained,  the  silvery  touches  of  soft  light  on  the  clouds  are 
all  admirably  rendered,  and  the  glitter  of  the  ripple  is 
accurately  recorded,  too.  But  the  gray  shade  of  the  clouds 
is  given  in  deep  brown  ;  and,  although  the  sun  is  high,  the 
light-house,  the  pier,  and  the  people  upon  it  are  all  in 
silhouette,  without  the  faintest  trace  of  any  detail  whatever. 
Of  course,  if  M.  Colliau  had  exposed  his  wet  collodion 
negative  a  few  seconds  more,  he  would  have  obtained  the 
detail  in  the  pier  at  the  cost  of  his  sky,  which  would  have 
been  all  decomposed  away  by  the  powerful  action  of  the 
abundant  chemical  rays,  and  his  negative  on  development 


Photography  and  Painting.  119 

would  have  exhibited  a  black  sky  over  a  very  dark  sea, 
which  in  the  positive  would  have  given  us  a  white  sky  and 
pale  water,  without  glitter.  But  we  should  have  had  our 
pier  in  the  corner  quite  perfect,  and  should  have  been  able 
to  see  the  people  upon  it  distinctly. 

A  prudent  photographer  will  always,  where  possible, 
avoid  these  discrepancies.  The  pier  was  introduced  to 
add  a  little  human  interest  to  the  subject,  and  in  this 
respect  with  judgment,  for  one  cannot  help  sympathizing 
with  the  people  on  the  pier,  who  are  waiting  for  their 
friends.  But  in  photography,  the  great  compass  of  Nature's 
light  should  never  be  attempted,  for  it  can  never  be  even 
suggestively  rendered.  And  M.  Colliau  has  succeeded  in 
producing  better  sea-views,  where  there  was  nothing  in 
the  foreground  darker  than  the  sea  itself,  as,  for  example, 
in  that  one  entitled  "  Le  mauvais  temps,"  one  of  the  most 
valuable  memoranda  of  the  action  of  sea-waves  I  possess, 
and  for  which  I  feel  extremely  grateful.  The  peculiar 
leaping  of  sea-water  is  perfectly  given,  and  the  white 
crests  in  the  middle  distance  are  as  good  as  may  be.  This 
photograph  fails  towards  the  edges,  where  it  becomes  dark 
—  a  common  defect  in  sea-views,  on  account  of  their  very 
brief  exposure,  which  M.  Colliau  has  wisely  remedied  in 
some  others  of  his  by  having  the  positives  cut  into  ovals 
before  being  mounted.  With  the  exception  of  this  defect, 
this  photograph  is  all  that  one  can  desire  ;  the  light  in  the 
natural  subject,  though  excessively  high  in  pitch,  being 
very  limited  in  compass.  For  the  pitch  matters  nothing 
whatever  to  the  photograph,  as  that  can  always  be  trans- 
posed to  Photography's  own  key  by  an  exposure  more  or 
less  prolonged ;  but  the  compass  is  of  the  greatest  impor- 
tance, because  Photography  has  so  narrow  a  compass,  that 
when  the  natural  subject  includes  both  treble  and  bass 
notes,  she  must  pass  two-thirds  of  them  in  absolute 
silence. 

I  have  an  oval  photograph  of  sea  by  M.  Colliau,  with 
a  boat  in  the  middle  distance.  The  time  of  exposure  must 
have  been  very  brief,  for  the  forms  of  the  waves  are  quite 
firm  and  clear,  yet  there  is  nothing  black  but  the  hull  of 


120  The  Relation  between 

the  boat.  If  there  had  been  any  thing  solid  in  the  fore- 
ground---as,  for  instance,  a  pier  —  it  would  have  come  in 
silhouette,  and  spoiled  the  photograph. 

I  have  another  oval  of  rough  sea,  by  the  same  manipu- 
lator. It  includes  a  fine  cumulus  cloud,  and  is  altogether 
wonderful.  Where  it  fails  as  a  study  is  in  the  absence  of 
distinction  between  foam  and  reflection.  The  negative 
has  evidently  been  exposed  long  enough  for  the  foam  to 
act  upon  it ;  so  that  it  is  as  bright  as  the  glitter,  and  there 
is  no  separating  them.  A  little  more  exposure,  and  the 
middle  tints  would  have  blackened  the  negative  all  over 
the  surface  of  the  water  in  the  interstices  between  the 
spots  of  foam  and  glitter.  Once  this  done,  the  picture 
would  have  been  destroyed  altogether ;  for  the  sea  would 
have  been  one  black  blank  in  the  negative,  and  one  white 
blank  in  the  positive. 

And  now,  if  you  want  to  know  the  relation  between 
these  marine  photographs  and  a  good  picture  of  the  sea,  it 
is  easy  to  ascertain  it  We  have  only  to  compare  one  of 
the  best  specimens  of  marine  photography  we  can  find, 
with  one  of  the  best  pictures  of  sea  hitherto  produced  by 
our  realist  school. 

I  will  take  for  this  purpose  one  of  Gustave  le  Gray's 
marine  photographs,  and  Holman  Hunt's  exquisite  little 
picture  entitled  "  Fairlight  Downs.  Sunlight  on  the 
Sea." 

In  the  photograph  the  blaze  of  light  upon  the  sea  is 
given  with  perfect  fidelity ;  but  in  order  to  get  this,  and 
the  light  on  the  edges  of  the  clouds,  all  else  has  been 
sacrificed —  the  shaded  sides  of  the  clouds,  in  nature  of  a 
dazzling  gray,  brighter  than  white  paper,  are  positively 
black  in  the  photograph,  and  the  pale  splendor  of  the  sun- 
lit sea,  —  except  where  it  flashes  light,  —  is  heavy  and 
impenetrable  darkness.  Towards  the  sides  of  the  photo- 
graph, the  distinction  between  sea  and  sky  is  wholly  lost 
in  one  uniform  shade  of  dark  brown,  extending  from  top 
to  bottom,  without  any  indication  of  a  horizon  ;  so  that, 
if  you  were  to  cut  a  strip  an  inch  and  a  half  broad  from 
each  side  of  the  photograph,  no  one  on  looking  at  the 


Photography  and  Painting.  121 

strip  would  at  all  suspect  that  it  represented  either  sea 
or  sky,  or  any  thing  else  in  nature.  The  crowning  falsity 
is,  however,  the  sun  itself,  which  is  darker  than  the  sur- 
rounding clouds,  being  simply  a  gray  wafer  on  a  white 
ground. 

However,  since  it  is  one  of  the  peculiar  misfortunes  of 
the  photograph  that  it  is  not  capable  of  giving  two  truths 
at  once,  not  having  any  method  of  compensation  like  that 
which  every  painter  finds  out  for  himself,  we  must  be  sat- 
isfied in  all  photographs  of  sunlight  on  the  sea  with  this 
one  truth  only  —  the  glitter  on  the  ripple  —  and  not  ask 
for  any  more.  I  have  observed  that  simple  people  always 
take  such  photographs  for  moonlights,  and  I  suspect  that 
they  are  extensively  sold  as  such.  The  truth  is  that  they 
do  approach  nearer  to  the  character  of  moonshine  than 
sunshine ;  but  even  in  moonlit  water,  there  is  a  diffused 
light  outside  the  reflection  or  glitter,  which  is  lost  in  these 
photographs. 

It  is  agreeable  to  turn  from  this  representation  of  one 
truth  to  a  picture  which,  in  about  the  same  superficies, 
gives  us  a  thousand. 

At  Mr.  Gambart's  Winter  Exhibition  in  the  year  1858, 
the  reader  may  have  seen  a  wonderful  little  picture  by 
Holman  Hunt,  entitled  "  Fairlight  Downs.  Sunlight  on 
the  Sea."  The  sunlight  itself  in  its  broad  white  glare  on 
the  water  under  the  sun,  and  its  gradual  scattering  into 
glitter  to  the  right  hand  and  to  the  left ;  in  its  long  lines 
in  the  distance,  divided  by  the  shadows  of  the  clouds ;  in 
its  restless  flashing  on  the  crests  of  the  little  waves  far 
away,  is  as  true  and  truer  than  the  photograph  —  but  here 
all  comparison  ends,  because  there  is  no  longer  in  the 
photograph  any  thing  to  be  compared  with  the  picture. 
Where  the  photograph  is  simply  dark  brown,  the  picture  is 
full  of  the  most  marvellously  delicate  gradations,  and  the 
sweetest  play  of  hue.  Where  the  glitter  is  not,  we  have 
still  the  sunlit  beauty  of  the  fair  sea,  which  is  indeed 
better  and  more  precious  even  than  the  glitter  itself,  just 
as  the  fairness  of  a  beautiful  woman  is  better  than  the 
glitter  of  her  diamonds.  And  there  is  a  hot  haze  in 


122  The  Relation  between 

the  blinding  distance  miles  away,  and  there  is  a  sultriness 
in  the  accumulated  clouds  which  shall  light  up  that  sea  at 
night  with  another  and  more  terrible  splendor.  And  then 
there  is  the  green  of  the  rich  land,  and  the  purple  of  the 
fallow,  and  nearer  is  a  mingled  glow  of  scarlet  flowers  and 
green  leaves,  and  staring  sheep,  and  a  dog,  and  the  shep- 
herd's staff.  And  all  these  other  facts  Hunt  could  get  into 
his  picture  because  painting  is  a  great  intellectual  art ;  an 
art  of  compensation,  and  compromise,  and  contrast ;  an  art 
capable  of  moderation,  and  subject  to  mastery.  And  all 
these  other  facts  Gustave  le  Gray  could  not  get  into  his 
photograph,  because  photography  is  not  a  fine  art,  but  an 
art  science ;  narrow  in  range,  emphatic  in  assertion,  telling 
one  truth  for  ten  falsehoods,  but  telling  always  distinctly 
the  one  truth  that  it  is  able  to  perceive. 

On  comparing  photographs  with  good  topographical  pen- 
drawings  of  the  same  objects,  I  find  a  result  very  different 
from  any  thing  that  many  persons  would  expect.  I  find  the 
sum  of  detail,  in  subjects  including  both  distant  and  near 
objects,  to  be  much  greater  in  the  drawing  than  in  the 
photograph.  Thus,  Bisson's  Chillon,  a  magnificent  photo- 
graph, gives  the  castle  in  true  detail,  but  loses  the  near 
foliage  in  black,  and  the  mountain  detail  in  pale  brown, 
like  the  sky.  A  good  topographical  drawing  would  have 
given  the  castle  less  exquisitely,  but  we  should  have  had 
the  near  foliage  thoroughly  drawn,  and  the  mountain  forms 
defined.  I  have  before  me  a  good  positive  of  the  Lac  de 
Gaube.  evidently  printed  from  a  waxed  paper  negative, 
and  therefore  a  remarkable  degree  of  detail  is  not  to  be 
expected ;  still,  I  think,  few  people  not  accustomed  to 
analyze  photographs  would  be  prepared,  in  a  photograph 
of  clear  weather,  such  as  this  one  evidently  is,  to  find  such 
a  large  space  of  sheer  vacancy  as  the  mountain  slope  on 
the  left.  A  topographical  drawing  might  be  done  in  a 
week  which  would  contain  ten  times  as  many  facts  as  this 
photograph. 

I  once  took  a  waxed  paper  negative  of  Craiganunie, 
and  have  since  drawn  and  painted  the  same  subject  in 
various  ways ;  I  find  that  with  five  or  six  hours'  labor,  I 


Photography  and  Painting.  123 

can  get  a  memorandum  containing  much  more  detail  than 
the  photograph.  I  do  not  pretend  to  say  that  the  details 
in  the  drawing  are  so  accurately  or  delicately  done ;  but 
they  are  quite  accurate  enough  for  artistic  purposes,  and 
there  are  more  of  them  than  in  the  photograph. 

I  know  that  the  collodion  process  would  have  afforded 
me  more  abundant  detail ;  but,  to  an  artist,  this  additional 
detail  is  often  of  little  consequence,  being  not  the  detail  he 
wants.  For  the  best  photograph  of  any  extensive  scene 
never  gives  more  than  partial  detail,  however  perfect  as 
far  as  it  goes.  The  artist,  too,  gives  selected  detail,  that 
which  seems  to  him  the  most  needful  and  vitally  express- 
ive :  and  here,  ten  to  one,  if  he  is  a  good  artist,  he  and  the 
photograph  will  not  be  of  the  same  opinion. 

It  is,  therefore,  quite  impossible  to  produce  good  pictures 
by  copying  photographs.  And  this  is  the  reason  why  Mr. 
Ruskin,  in  answer  to  a  malicious  accusation  against  the 
pre-Raphaelites,  that  they  "  copied  photographs,  "  chal- 
lenged the  accusers  to  produce  a  pfe-Raphaelite  picture 
themselves,  or  any  thing  like  one,  by  that  process.  The 
challenge  was  perfectly  safe,  and,  of  course,  has  never  been 
responded  to. 

The  way  in  which  artists  ordinarily  use  photographs  is 
this.  When  their  memoranda  from  nature  are  not  minute 
enough,  as  sometimes  from  circumstances  they  cannot  be, 
painters  will  take  a  suggestion  from  a  photograph,  and 
invent  details  for  their  pictures,  which  the  photograph 
rather  suggests  than  contains.  This  is  the  practice  of  some 
artists  I  know,  but  I  have  been  told,  on  good  authority,  that 
one  of  our  most  popular  painters  of  winter  scenery  always 
works  from  the  photograph  alone,  and  never  even  draws 
from  nature.  The  study  of  winter  scenery  from  nature 
involves,  of  course,  the  physical  difficulty  of  resistance  to 
the  cold ;  and  it  seems  natural  that  a  painter  who  does  not 
use  a  studio-tent  like  mine  should  find  painting  from  pho- 
tographs in  a  warm  studio  pleasanter  work  than  painting 
from  nature  in  the  cold  open  air  of  December.  Even  in 
this  extreme  instance,  however,  the  true  way  of  stating 
the  case  would  be  to  say  that  the  artist  works  from  mem- 


124  The  Relation  between 

ory  and  invention  aided  by  reference  to  photographs, 
because  there  is  a  good  deal  of  color  in  his  works,  which 
could  not  be  got  from  photographs;  and  his  system  of 
light  is  artistic  and  not  photographic,  a  little  fact  which, 
of  itself,  at  once  precludes  all  idea  of  copying  photographs. 

Since  most  artists  buy  photographs  of  subjects  not  often 
obviously  connected  with  the  particular  subjects  of  their 
pictures,  the  question  naturally  suggests  itself,  whether  it 
would  not  be  desirable  for  the  painter  to  take  photographs 
himself,  which  might  afford  more  direct  and  useful  data 
than  any  procurable  in  the  shops,  as  he  might  then  obtain 
memoranda  of  the  particular  subjects  he  intended  to  paint. 
Such  a  course  appears  at  first  sight  likely  to  be  peculiarly 
advantageous  to  a  painter,  for  the  important  reason  that  he 
might  adjust  the  time  of  exposure  of  the  negative  to  the 
especial  result  required  ;  and  so,  by  taking  several  photo- 
graphs of  the  same  subject,  of  different  degrees  of  expos- 
ure, obtain  from  their  united  testimony  the  various  truths 
of  detail  he  would  fleed  for  his  picture.  This  suggests  it- 
self as  a  wise  and  politic  course  to  pursue,  for  it  apparently 
obviates  the  greatest  inconvenience  of  photography,  its 
loss  of  detail  at  the  two  ends  of  the  scale.  By  a  careful 
regulation  of  the  exposure,  half  a  dozen  collodion  nega- 
tives of  one  scene  might  be  made  to  yield  an  enormous 
aggregate  of  detail  in  every  part  of  the  subject. 

It  seems  also  evident  that  since  the  wet  collodion  pro- 
cess is  almost  instantaneous,  certain  memoranda  of  effects 
of  light  may  be  got  by  its  means  which  are  not  otherwise 
attainable  ;  as,  for  example,  the  complicated  shadows  of 
mountains,  which  it  is  quite  impossible  to  draw  truly  on 
account  of  their  swift  changing.  And,  to  a  painter  who 
has  to  deal  with  rich  architecture,  it  seems  as  if  the  photo- 
graph would  be  a  most  useful  servant,  giving  him  accurate 
data  for  every  stone  in  the  most  elaborately  wrought  build- 
ing.* There  can  be  no  doubt  that  no  memorandum  of 
cloud-form  is  equal  to  a  photograph,  for  none  other  can  be 

*  I  speak  of  exteriors  only.  Gothic  interiors  are  generally  too  dark 
to  be  photographed  in  detail. 


Photography  and  Painting.  125 

true,  even  in  outline;  whereas,  the  sensitive  collodion  will 
arrest  in  an  instant  the  flying  change  of  innumerable 
clouds.  And,  in  matters  of  foreground  detail,  when  a 
painter  cannot  remain  on  the  spot  to  finish  an  elaborate 
drawing  from  nature ;  as,  for  example,  on  a  Swiss  glacier, 
the  abundant  detail  obtainable  by  a  collodion  photograph 
in  a  few  seconds,  will  naturally  tempt  a  landscape  painter 
to  encumber  himself  with  a  camera. 

For  this  photography,  as  an  art  so  imperfect,  is  a  won- 
derfully obedient  slave  for  the  collecting  of  memoranda,  if 
only  its  one  great  peculiarity  be  humored  a  little.  Pho- 
tography cannot  often  give  very  much  truth  at  once;  but 
it  will  give  us  innumerable  truths,  if  we  only  ask  for  one 
at  a  time.  And  a  large  collection  of  photographic  memo- 
randa, taken  by  a  painter  for  especial  purposes,  seems 
likely  to  be  a  precious  possession  for  him. 

But  here  occur  other  considerations. 

Photography  affords  a  very  interesting  proof  of  a  fact 
well  known  to  artists,  that  a  certain  degree  of  exaggera- 
tion is  quite  indispensable  to  apparent  veracity.  I  believe 
that  this  is  so  in  literature  also  ;  and  that  no  study  of 
human  character  would  ever  be  generally  recognized  as 
true  which  was  not  idealized  and  exaggerated  almost  to 
the  verge  of  caricature.  A  certain  extravagance  of  state- 
ment seems  in  literature  essential  to  effective  work ;  owing, 
I  suppose,  to  the  coarseness  of  our  faculties,  which  need 
something  stronger  than  pure  truth,  as  the  ordinary  Brit- 
ish consumer  will  only  drink  doctored  wines,  and  despises 
the  genuine  juice  of  the  grape.  But,  however  this  may 
be  in  books,  it  is  quite  demonstrably  so  in  pictures,  as  the 
photograph  conclusively  proves.  Photographs  of  moun- 
tains are  hardly  recognizable.  The  most  careful  topo- 
graphic drawing,  if  it  looks  like  nature,  is  sure  to  be  full 
of  exaggerations.  People  who  are  not  aware  of  this  never 
can  recognize  photographs  of  distant  scenery,  however 
familiar  the  scenery  may  be  to  them ;  but  they  will  recog- 
nize an  exaggerated  sketch  without  difficulty.  I  have 
found  this  continually  here.  I  do  my  best  not  to  exag- 
gerate in  working  from  nature  ;  but,  as  soon  as  ever  I  get 


0V  TBS 


126  The,  Relation  between 

interested  in  my  subject,  I  cannot  help  exaggerating ; 
whereas  the  photographic  machine,  being  absolutely  indif- 
ferent, will  not  give  the  least  additional  emphasis  to  the 
most  interesting  feature  in  its  subject.  The  grandeur  of 
noble  scenery  excites  the  imagination.  It  is  quite  incredi- 
ble how  small  a  space  is  really  occupied,  in  the  picture  on 
the  retina  of  the  eye,  by  that  far  gorge  between  the  hills 
that  we  know  to  be  a  thousand  feet  deep,  and  five  miles 
through.  The  photograph  gives  the  fact  in  its  stern  truth, 
so  many  actinic  rays  and  no  more,  an  image  so  large  in 
porportion  and  no  larger.  But  the  painter  always  sympa- 
thizes, more  or  less,  with  the  excitement  of  the  beholder, 
for  he  is  himself  a  beholder.  And  therefore,  the  photo- 
graphic truth  about  mountains  will  always,  in  its  lifeless- 
ness,  strongly  offend  the  artistic  sense,  and  seem  false  and 
inadequate,  as,  indeed,  it  is,  in  relation  to  the  spectator's 
imagination. 

But  all  good  painting,  however  literal,  however  pre- 
Raphaelite  or  topographic,  is  full  of  human  feeling  and 
emotion.  If  it  has  no  other  feeling  in  it  than  love  or 
admiration  for  the  place  depicted,  that  is  much  already, 
quite  enough  to  carry  the  picture  out  of  the  range  of  pho- 
tography into  the  regions  of  real  art. 

And  this  is  the  reason  why  a  good  painting  cannot  be 
based  on  a  photograph.  I  find  photographic  memoranda 
of  less  value  even  than  hasty  sketches,  though  no  painter 
was  ever  more  dissatisfied  with  mere  sketching.  The  pho- 
tograph renders  forms  truly,  no  doubt,  as  far  as  it  goes, 
but  it  by  no  means  renders  feelings,  and  is  therefore  of  no 
practical  use  *  to  a  painter,  who  feels  habitually,  and  never 
works  without  emotion.  And  it  is  useless  to  try  to  elimi- 
nate feeling  from  our  art  even  in  plain  portraiture.  It  is 
possible  to  draw  portraits  of  mountains  as  grandly  as 
Titian  and  Vandyke  drew  portraits  of  men ;  and,  mark 
you,  when  a  painter  proposes  to  himself  the  portraiture  of 
particular  scenes  instead  of  the  ideal  landscape  painting  of 
the  painter-poets,  he  no  more  abandons  the  life  of  a  think- 

*  Except,  of  course,  for  reference  as  to  matters  of  fact. 


Photography  and  Painting.  127 

ing  and  feeling  creature  than  an  author  who  takes  to  writ- 
ing history  instead  of  fiction.  A  true  painter  both  thinks 
and  feels,  and  that  always,  but  most  intensely  when  in  the 
actual  presence  of  Nature.  The  photographic  machine 
feels  nothing,  and  there  is  precisely  the  same  difference 
between  its  work  and  the  soul's  work  in  landscape  portrait- 
ure that  there  is  in  figure  portraiture.  A  topographic 
landscape  painter  may  put  as  much  tenderness  and  grace 
into  his  trees  and  clouds  as  Reynolds  into  his  women,  with- 
out at  all  quitting  the  very  elastic  limitations  of  portraiture. 

I  have  found  this  utter  insensibility  of  the  photograph 
positively  irritating  when  I  have  occasionally  used  it  to 
obtain  memoranda  of  my  favorite  scenes.  It  may  be 
demonstrably,  mathematically,  scientifically  true  that  the 
mountains  round  Loch  Awe  are  reduced  by  perspective  to 
very  unimportant  elevations  in  a  narrow  black  line  of  land 
that  serves  to  divide  the  sky  from  the  water  ;  but  it  is  no 
use  telling  me  so,  because  either  my  eyes,  or  my  imagina- 
tion, or  some  unaccountable  prepossession  in  my  unreason- 
ing instincts  will  have  it  they  are  quite  otherwise.  And 
the  photographs  seem  to  me  unendurably  inadequate  and 
false,  my  own  drawings  only  seeming  tolerably  true, 
though  not  so  true  as  I  would  have  them.  The  fact  is, 
there  is  a  glamor  on  all  our  eyes.  Queen  Nature  has  daz- 
zled and  bewitched  us  by  her  overpowering  splendor  and 
loveliness. 

This  power  of  the  excited  imagination  to  change  the 
actual  forms  and  relative  magnitudes  of  objects  I  have  re- 
peatedly tested,  with  results  that  are  quite  astonishing. 
The  best  test,  for  a  person  who  can  draw,  is  to  sketch  some 
real  scene  exactly  as  it  appears  to  him  when  excited  by  its 
beauty,  not,  of  course,  in  forced  coldness  or  real  apathy. 
Let  him  afterwards  photograph  the  same  subject.  On 
comparing  the  sketch  with  the  photograph,  he  will  under- 
stand the  degree  in  which  the  fire  of  imagination  affects 
the  forms  of  things.  And  what  is  still  more  astonishing  at 
first  is,  that  he  cannot  believe  that  the  photograph  is  true 
at  all,  it  seems  as  if  there  were  something  altogether 
wrong  about  it.  But  if  he  sets  up  a  threaded  frame  and 


128  The  Relation  between 

deliberately  measures  the  mountains  by  the  reticulations  of 
the  crossed  threads,  and  then  coldly  copies  them  on  a 
sheet  of  paper  ruled  with  lines  answering  to  the  threads, 
he  will  prove  the  literal  accuracy  of  the  photograph. 
There  is  another  way  to  prove  it.  Let  the  painter  look 
at  the  same  scene  by  starlight.  In  the  daylight  his  imagi- 
nation is  excited  by  the  mountains,  and  they  seem  to  oc- 
cupy the  whole  plane  of  vision,  but  at  night  it  is  not  so : 
then  the  stars  tyrannize  over  the  imagination  and  the  moun- 
tains all  shrink  into  a  narrow,  black,  irregular  line,  tamed 
into  absolute  insignificance,  and  precisely  like  the  brown 
stain  that  represents  them  in  the  photograph.  So  that  a 
photograph  of  a  range  of  mountains  may  be  a  good  and 
serviceable  memorandum  for  a  night  picture,  when  they  do 
not  affect  the  imagination  much  on  account  of  their  own 
vacancy,  and  the  stronger  influence  of  the  stars,  and  yet 
quite  inadequate  for  any  powerful  daylight  effect  when 
the  mountains  themselves  are  mighty. 

What  we  artists  see  is  a  vision  of  Nature  through  the 
lenses  that  she  has  given  us,  our  own  human  eyes  bright- 
ened or  dimmed  as  may  be  with  human  joys  and  sorrows 
and  emotions.  That  vision  thus  transmitted  is  reflected  in 
the  mysterious  dark  chamber  of  the  skull,  with  a  thousand 
subtle  changes  and  strange  variations  of  unaccountable 
fantasy.  And  it  seems  to  me  that  although  the  scene  is 
God's  work  and  sacred,  the  lens  also,  and  the  dark  cham- 
ber, are  not  less  God's  work,  nor  less  sacred.  Men's  eyes 
were  not  given  them  to  be  superseded  by  carefully  ground 
glass  lenses  of  the  best  London  manufacture.  The  glass  lens 
is  a  wonderful  thing  no  doubt,  very  difficult  to  shape  and 
polish  to  its  true  surface  curves,  and  the  mahogany  box  is 
a  very  accurate  and  well-made  specimen  of  joiner's  work ; 
but  what  of  the  lens  that  is  in  the  eye,  and  the  box  that 
holds  the  brain  ?  The  artist  who  would  truly  see  Nature 
must  look  at  her  works  with  the  eyes  that  she  lias  given 
him,  and  not  see  her  at  second-hand  by  the  intervention  of 
a  glass  lens  and  a  mahogany  camera. 

Unspeakably  important  to  every  student  —  and  the  art- 
ist is  always  a  student  —  is  the  great  question  of  culture. 


Photography  and  Painting.  129 

I  hold  culture  so  precious  that  hardly  any  sacrifice  is  to  be 
refused  that  may  tend  to  its  attainment,  nor  any  advan- 
tage accepted  which  impedes  the  pursuit  of  it.  And  art- 
ist sought  to  remember  that,  as  in  most  things  a  definite 
price  has  to  be  paid  for  any  assistance  photography  can 
give,  and  that  this  price  must  be  paid  in  the  precise  form 
most  fatal  to  ultimate  success.  I  do  not  speak  of  expen- 
sive chemicals,  of  nitrate  of  silver,  and  chloride  of  gold  ;  I 
speak  of  what  is  incomparably  more  precious  than  either 
silver  or  gold,  the  knowledge  of  nature.  Every  piece  of 
hard  study  a  painter  does  from  nature,  however  worthless 
in  itself,  has  compelled  him  to  observe  natural  facts  which 
the  photograph  does  not  recognize  and  cannot  render ;  and 
every  time  a  painter  substitutes  photography  for  nature, 
as  a  source  of  instruction,  he  misses  many  truths,  inures 
himself  to  many  falsities,  and  pays  fop  the  convenience  of 
having  the  photograph  in  the  next  print-shop  instead  of 
travelling  to  see  nature,  in  something  more  ruinous  than 
coin,  —  he  pays  for  it  with  part  of  his  own  faculties.  In- 
dolence, in  whatever  shape,  lays  this  terrible  tax  upon  us, 
that  it  will  be  paid  for  out  of  ourselves.  For  every  hour's 
work  that  we  avoid  through  indolence  is  so  much  strength 
lost  to  us ;  and  though  there  is  a  help  which  benefits  us, 
there  is  another  kind  of  help  which  only  debilitates  us. 
Now,  photography  will  help  a  painter  in  either  of  these 
ways,  according  to  his  own  choice.  If  he  refers  to  it  quite 
independently  and  intelligently  for  the  mere  refreshment 
of  his  memory,  it  will  really  be  of  great  use  to  him,  and 
do  him  no  manner  of  harm  ;  but  if  he  puts  his  trust  in  it 
when  he  ought  to  trust  nature  alone,  if  he  blindly  relies 
upon  it  to  save  himself  the  trouble  of  working  and  learn- 
ing from  nature,  it  will  put  poison  and  death  into  all  his 
best  and  noblest  faculties. 

If  an  artist  takes  photographic  memoranda  for  himself, 
what  process  ought  he  to  employ  ? 

A  great  many  processes  have  been  employed  by  different 
photographers  since  the  days  of  Niepce,  but  of  these,  three 
only  concern  us,  —  the  wet  collodion,  the  waxed  paper,  and 
the  dry  collodion. 

9 


130  The  Relation  'between 

The  wet  collodion  is  scarcely  eligible  for  an  artist's  own 
practice  on  account  of  its  well-known  uncertainty,  and  the 
cumbersome  apparatus  it  requires ;  and  because  it  is  neces- 
sary to  excite  the  film  immediately  before  exposure,  and 
to  develop  the  image,  and  fix  it,  immediately  after,  so  that 
it  always  consumes  a  great  deal  of  daylight  time,  far  more 
than  anybody  would  think  who  only  considered  the  few 
seconds  or  minutes  of  actual  exposure.  There  are  circum- 
stances, however,  where  it  is  worth  while  to  employ  the 
wet  collodion. 

When  a  painter  is  collecting  memoranda  for  a  large  pic- 
ture, —  a  picture  of  sufficient  value  and  importance  to 
make  it  worth  his  while  to  take  a  great  deal  of  trouble 
in  obtaining  records  of  every  fact  in  the  scene  which  may 
be  of  use  to  his  great  work,  —  it  will  repay  him  to  set  up 
on  the  spot  a  complete  photographic  and  artistic  camp,  in 
which  one  tent  or  hut  would  be  exclusively  devoted  to  the 
photographic  department.  With  such  preparations,  but 
not  conveniently  without  them,  it  is  possible  to  pursue  the 
wet  collodion  process ;  and  about  a  dozen  negatives  of  dif- 
ferent degrees  of  exposure,  which  exposure  is  not  to  be 
regulated  according  to  photographers'  rules,  but  according 
to  the  painter's  wants,  would  afford  the  artist  a  mine  of 
facts  for  reference. 

For  travelling  and  sketching  artists,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  do  not  collect  memoranda  for  some  especial  work, 
but  merely  to  enrich  their  collections  at  home,  the  wet 
collodion  process  is  altogether  unsuitable.  When  you 
work  in  wet  collodion,  you  must  be  content  to  sacrifice  a 
whole  day  to  it  at  once.  Now,  travelling  artists  seldom 
give  more  than  two  days  to  one  place,  and  they  could  not 
sacrifice  one  of  them  to  photography.  Such  artists,  if 
they  employ  photography  at  all,  require  some  process 
which  will  allow  of  the  separation  of  the  different  opera- 
tions, so  that  the  exposure  alone  shall  occupy  daylight 
time,  whilst  the  preparation  and  development  may  be 
done  by  candlelight  at  home,  on  the  preceding  and  sub- 
sequent evenings. 

The  waxed  paper  process  offers  this  advantage.     After 


Photography  and  Painting.  131 

doing  a  good  day's  work  in  drawing  from  nature,  a 
painter  may  prepare  his  sheets  of  waxed  paper,  and 
render  them  sensitive ;  then  put  them  by  in  a  portfolio, 
and  the  next  day  get  a  few  photographic  memoranda  by 
exposing  his  papers  in  the  camera  in  the  intervals  of 
work.  He  merely  transfers  the  exposed  papers  to 
another  portfolio,  without  troubling  himself  about  de- 
velopment, which  he  does  afterwards  at  home  in  the 
evening.  All  this  sounds  wonderfully  convenient;  but 
as  I  have  practically  tried  it  with  much  perseverance,  I 
may  be  allowed  to  indicate  a  few  drawbacks. 

The  paper  process  is  objectionable  for  several  reasons. 
1st.  The  sheets  do  not  retain  their  full  degree  of  sensi- 
bility long  enough  to  be  very  convenient ;  for  I  have 
found  in  practice  that  more  than  one-half  of  them  were 
lost  on  account  of  the  weather,  which  did  not  always 
allow  of  their  being  used  whilst  still  serviceable.  2d. 
The  time  of  exposure  is  so  long  as  to  make  the  process 
useless  for  what  is  transitory  in  nature ;  so  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  obtain  a  good  paper  negative,  even  of  foliage 
except  in  the  very  calmest  weather,  when  the  leaves  will 
remain  quiet  for  twenty  minutes  or  half  an  hour  together. 
This  length  of  exposure,  too,  makes  the  process  costly 
in  point  of  time.  3d.  The  negative,  when  obtained  is 
seldom  sufficiently  minute  in  detail  to  be  of  more  use 
than  a  careful  drawing.  4th.  The  idea  that  the  develop- 
ment costs  no  daylight  time  merely  because  it  is  done 
in  the  night  is  fallacious.  I  used  to  find  it  impossible  to 
do  any  good  early  on  a  summer's  morning,  after  having 
been  kept  out  of  bed  the  greater  part  of  the  night  to 
watch  the  slow  development  of  a  series  of  negatives, 
In  camp,  this  interruption  to  the  night's  repose  is  in- 
tolerable. After  working  hard  all  day,  an  unbroken 
sleep  is  necessary  to  the  success  of  the  morrow's  labor, 
and  the  candlelight  time  of  the  night  will  be  paid  for 
in  the  daylight  time  of  the  morning  —  it  could  not  be 
paid  for  more  dearly. 

The  dry  collodion  remains.  This  process  is  now  gen- 
erally adopted  for  landscape,  on  account  of  advantages 


132  The  Relation  between 

similar  to  those  possessed  by  the  waxed  paper,  and  two 
important  advantages  which  the  waxed  paper  does  not 
possess.  A  glass  plate,  with  a  film  of  dry  collodion  upon 
it,  will  keep  fit  for  use  during  a  very  long  time  —  for 
twelve  months  certainly  —  without  any  appreciable  dimi- 
nution of  sensitiveness.  It  will  also  afford  great  delicacy 
of  detail. 

I  have  not  yet  practised  this  process  myself,  and  am, 
consequently,  not  qualified  to  speak  from  experience,  as 
I  did  with  regard  to  the  two  preceding  processes ;  but  it 
seems  to  me  the  most  eligible  one  for  a  painter,  because 
it  admits  of  a  complete  division  of  labor,  by  wnich  all 
the  chemical  work  may  be  allotted  to  a  practical  chemist, 
and  the -choice  of  subject  and  exposure  of  the  plate  alone 
reserved  for  the  artist.  By  this  system  I  could  have 
plates  sent  here  from  London,  already  sensitive  and  fit 
for  exposure,  at  any  time  during  twelve  months.  After 
having  exposed  them,  I  could  return  them  to  London 
and  have  them  developed  in  the  laboratory,  where  they 
were  rendered  sensitive.  Thence  they  would  be  forwarded 
to  a  printer  of  positives,  who  would  print  me  a  positive  or 
two  from  each  plate:  so  that  by  this  perfect  division  of 
labor,  the  only  time  I  should  have  to  expend  would  be 
the  five  minutes  of  exposure ;  and  the  only  apparatus  I 
need  ever  burden  myself  with  would  be  a  folding  camera 
and  a  box  of  sensitive  plates. 

Whatever  photographic  process  an  artist  may  pursue, 
I  hold  it,  however,  quite  a  settled  question  that  he  ought 
never  to  print  his  own  positives.  There  are  plenty  of 
positive  printers  in  London  who  will  do  it  for  him  on 
reasonable  terms,  and  so  relieve  him  of  an  unnecessary 
burden  of  labor. 

Since  few  artists  are  likely  to  practise  photography  for 
themselves,  it  is  as  an  independent  art  that  it  is  likely  to 
influence  ours.  Let  us  see  how  far  that  influence  is  likely 
to  extend. 

I  concede  the  title  of  "  art "  to  photography,  but  not  in 
its  highest  sense.  The  photographer  is  so  hampered  by 
conditions  that  he  cannot  be  an  artist  in  the  true  sense, 


Photography  and  Painting.  133 

because  he  does  not  enjoy  the  least  intellectual  freedom. 
He  is  rather  the  slave  of  the  camera  than  its  master ;  and 
though  great  skill  and,  science  are  needed  to  serve  the 
camera  well,  the  soul  of  the  photographer  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  result ;  and  makes  no  farther  communication 
to  the  spectator  than  this  simple  one :  "  I,  such  an  one, 
chose  this  subject." 

I  have  said  already  how  much  I  rejoice  in  the  passing 
away  of  the  old  jealousy  with  which  photography  used 
to  be  regarded  by  painters.  And  the  better  its  peculiar 
powers  are  understood  and  applied,  the  less  chance  will 
there  be  that  these  feelings  of  jealousy  can  ever  possess 
any  but  the  most  ignorant  and  incapable  artists.  For  my 
own.  part,  though  knowing  as  a  painter  only  can  know, 
how  far  the  photograph  falls  short  of  that  absolute  natural 
truth  which  thoughtless  people  are  so  ready  to  attribute  to 
it,  I  hold  the  science  precious  in  a  thousand  ways.  It 
would  take  a  whole  volume  to  recount  the  services  which, 
photography  has  already  rendered  to  the  world,  and  another 
to  foretell  some  of  its  most  obvious  future  benefits ;  but, 
as  I  am  concerned  here  only  with  its  relation  to  the  art  of 
painting,  I  shall  endeavor  to  point  out  one  or  two  of  the 
principal  reasons  why  we  artists  ought  to  be  truly  grate- 
ful to  the  illustrious  men  who  discovered  it,  and  to  those 
scarcely  less  illustrious  laborers  who  have  brought  it  to 
its  present  marvellous  state  of  perfection. 

First  of  all,  photography  has  relieved  painters  of  nearly 
all  the  soulless  drudgery  they  used  to  have  to  go  through 
formerly,  and  so  has  wonderfully  elevated  them  as  artists 
by  defining  the  true  sphere  of  their  work.  For  the  ques- 
tion which  photography  is  making  everybody  ask,  "  What 
is  the  good  of  painting  ?  "  is  precisely  the  question  which 
everybody  in  England  must  ask,  and  get  answered  satis- 
factorily, before  there  is  any  chance  of  our  art  taking  its  due 
place  amongst  the  occupations  of  men.  When  I  show  my 
photographs  to  people  who  do  not  care  for  art,  I  observe 
that  they  often  ask  this  question, —  a  question  which,  I  on 
my  part,  find  it  very  difficult  to  answer  in  a  manner,  and 
within  limits  which  must  be  polite  and  not  didactic.  How 


134  The  Relation  between 

shall  I  answer  it  here  ?  How  shall  the  true  answer  to  it 
ever  be  given  in  one  sentence,  or  page,  or  chapter,  or 
volume  ?  For  to  answer  this  question  rightly  would  be  to 
explain  the  whole  art  of  painting,  a  matter  of  some  magni- 
tude and  one  not  easily  set  forth  in  words,  however  well 
arranged. 

Here  is  an  abstract  of  the  answer,  however,  not  likely 
to  be  very  satisfactory,  I  fear,  to  the  people  who  usually 
ask  the  question,  yet  the  best  I  can  find  just  now. 

The  good  of  painting  is  that  it  represents  the  relations 
of  truths  of  nature  (1st)  to  each  other,  and  (2d)  to  the 
heart  and  intellect  of  man. 

Photography  represents  facts  isolated  from  their  natural 
companions,  and  without  any  hint  of  their  relation  to-  the 
human  mind. 

Now  it  is  only  the  unity  of  relation  that  can  satisfy  the 
artistic  sense,  not  isolated  fragments ;  and,  therefore,  so 
long  as  the  artistic  sense  remains  in  the  human  organi- 
zation, the  demand  for  pictures  will  certainly  continue. 

I  wish  I  could  make  perfectly  clear  what  is  that  unity 
of  relation  which  is  so  satisfactory  to  the  artistic  sense ; 
but  that,  in  these  limits,  is  impossible.  It  is  enough  to 
say  here  that  any  perfect  "  whole  "  in  a  pictorial  repre- 
sentation of  nature  must  include  delicate  colors  and  beau- 
tiful forms,  all  helping  each  other  to  the  utmost,  like  a  chorus 
of  well-trained  singers,  and  that  in  the  arrangement  of  it 
all  a  great  human  soul  must  manifest  itself,  just  as  the  soul 
of  Handel  does  in  a  chorus  from  the  Messiah. 

But  in  the  photograph  we  have  only  a  fact  or  two 
clearly  stated,  but  not  in  their  natural  connection  with 
other  facts ;  far  less  in  their  deeper  and  more  mysterious 
connection,  which  the  genius  of  great  imaginative  artists  is 
alone  able  to  apprehend. 

Therefore  the  division  of  labor  likely  to  take  place 
between  photography  and  painting  is.  this.  Photography 
will  record  isolated  facts  of  which  an  infinite  number 
always  need  recording.  Painting  will  concern  itself  with 
the  relations  of  associated  truths  and  beauties. 

And  let  each  keep  to  its  own  task.     The  photograph  can 


Photography  and  Painting.  135 

never  successfully  encroach  on  the  province  of  painting ; 
and  henceforth  let  us  hope  that  painters  will  never  again 
commit  the  rash  imprudence  of  attempting  to  intrude 
upon  the  peculiar  domain  of  the  photograph. 

In  the  few  instances  where  photographers  have  at- 
tempted to  produce  something  resembling  historical 
pictures,  by  arranging  models  and  furniture,  and  pho- 
tographing the  tableaux  vivants  so  obtained,  the  effect 
produced  on  the  spectator  was  always  the  simple  fact 
that  he  was  looking  at  a  photograph  of  dressed-up 
models  and  carefully  arranged  furniture;  any  thing  far- 
ther from  a  true  picture  it  would  be  impossible  to  con- 
ceive. The  naivete  of  the  mistake  on  which  this  spurious 
art  was  founded  is  really  amusing.  The  photographers 
fancied  that  the  painters  merely  copied  their  models,  and 
so  thought  it  easy  to  rival  them.  Why,  even  the  very 
severest  and  most  rigid  pre-Raphaelites  use  the  model  as 
little  more  than  a  stimulus,  an  authority,  or  a  suggestion. 
Copy  the  model  indeed  !  I  should  like  to  know  where 
on  earth  Hunt  could  have  found  a  woman  capable  of 
assuming  and  retaining  that  marvellous  expression  of 
beatitude  that  illuminates  the  sweet  face  of  Mary  when 
she  finds  Jesus  in  the  Temple.  That  expression,  which 
is  the  most  mighty  thing  in  the  whole  picture, — the 
mightiest,  I  mean,  over  the  hearts  of  all  men  and  women 
who  can  really  feel  any  thing,  —  was  gotten  out  of  the 
painter's  own  soul,  not  from  any  hired  model  whatever. 
And  the  other  intense  expression  of  maternal  love  in 
the  "  Rescue,"  by  Millais,  whence  .came  it  ?  From  the 
model,  think  you,  or  from  the  mind  of  the  painter? 
And  not  only  expression,  but  even  the  subtle  play  of 
delicate  line  in  the  works  of  the  great  designers,  —  even 
that  is  not  copyism,  nor  to  be  got  at  by  copyism  such  as 
the  camera  may  rival. 

I  need  not  do  more  than  refer  in  this  place  to  the 
odious  vulgarity  of  the  common  stereoscopic  scenes  of 
domestic  life :  the  weddings  and  christenings,  where  a 
sham  clergyman  in  a  pasteboard  church  unites  a  neatly 
shaven  model  •  husband  to  a  modest  model  wife ;  or  a 


136  The  JKelation  between 

miserable  infant,  which  at  the  tender  age  of  three  months 
has  commenced  its  professional  career  as  a  model,  is  held 
for  the  hundredth  time  at  a  sham  font  to  be  christened 
by  the  same  dreary  sham  clergyman  who  officiated  at  the 
sham  wedding.  We  will  leave  these  abominations  to 
prosper  .in  peace,  which,  being  intensely  vulgar,  they  are 
very  sure  to  do,  under  the  patronage  of  a  discriminating 
public. 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  what  a  lamentable  waste 
of  labor  it  is  when  artists  forget  all  about  the  mutual 
relation  of  things,  to  copy  unmeaning  details  in  long 
months  of  labor,  which  any  good  photographer  would 
obtain  in  infinitely  greater  perfection  with  an  exposure 
of  as  many  minutes!  The  mere  fact  that  photography 
does  this  sort  of  work  so  unapproachably  well,  should 
be  enough  of  itself  to  warn  our  young  painters  from 
engaging  in  it.  Anybody  who  wants  a  plain  fact  about 
a  piece  of  cliff'  or  castle-wall  can  get  it  in  a  photograph 
for  a  few  shillings :  then  why  should  he  spend  pounds 
for.  a  picture  which  will  give  him  nothing  more  ?  But 
the  relation  of  the  castle  or  the  cliff  to  the  heaven 
above  or  the  water  beneath,  and  to -the  minds  of  men  — 
the  significant  stains  of  color  upon  it,  the  grandeur  of 
its  enduring  strength,  the  deep  human  feelings  that  it 
ought  to  kindle  in  the  spectator's  heart  —  these  things 
are  the  exclusive  domain  of  the  painter,  and  he  should 
never  sacrifice  the  least  of  these  to  mere  literal  fidelity 
of  detail. 

Some  attempts  have  been  made  lately  by  our  most 
observant  and  laborious  young  painters  to  mirror  nature 
with  absolute  accuracy.  I  have  tried  for  this  myself,  and 
tried  hard  too  ;  but  on  comparing  carefully  the  results  I 
obtained  with  those  given  by  the  photograph,  I  felt  that 
our  two  paths  lay  in  quite  different  directions.  What 
I  honestly  meant  for  simple  topographic  painting,  and 
believed  to  be  such,  I  discovered  on  comparing  it  with 
photographs  of  the  same  subjects  to  be  any  thing  but 
literally  accurate,  though  it  seemed  to  me,  and  to  every- 
body else,  much  more  like  the  scene  than  the  photograph. 


Photography  and  Painting.  137 

But  all  really  accurate  mirror  painting  would,  in  outline 
at  least,  exactly  coincide  with  photography.  And  I 
see  some  reason  to  doubt  whether  it  was  ever  intended 
that  men  should  devote  their  lives  to  this  work  of  the 
mirror,  since  Nature  has  given  us  this  wonderful  science 
of  photography,  as  it  seems  expressly  for  this  very 
purpose. 

The  service  rendered  by  the  stereoscope  in  the  record- 
ing of  facts  is  much  greater  than  people  are  ordinarily 
aware  of.  In  all  photographs  except  stereoscopic  ones, 
there  is  a  certain  unnatural  confusion  in  their  flatness, 
an  uncertainty  as  to  whether  one  detail  is  nearer  to  the 
spectator  than  another.  This  uncertainty  painters  avoid 
by  wilful  exaggeration  of  relief,  and  other  artifices ;  but 
the  stereoscope  removes  it  altogether,  by  making  us  see 
two  distinct  images  of  the  same  object  at  once  from 
different  points  of  view,  exactly  as  we  do  in  looking  at 
Nature  from  the  two  different  windows  of  our  two  eyes ; 
the  consequence  of  which  is,  that  we  grasp  the  details  by 
the  two  sides  and  detach  them  from  the  general  confusion 
of  mere  flat  one-eyed  vision,  such  as  the  ordinary  photo- 
graph gives  us.  The  stereoscope  renders  then  a  very 
peculiar  and  valuable  service  to  photography,  by  making 
it  infinitely  more  legible  as  a  record  of  fact ;  and  I  do  not 
believe  that  a  painted  record  of  any  mere  fact  of  form, 
however  delicately  done,  can  ever  equal  a  shilling  stere- 
oscopic slide.  I  am  not  speaking  here  of  color,  because 
color  is  so  changeable  as  not  to  be  very  desirable  in  plain 
mirror-like  copyism  of  facts.  We  are  not  now  speaking 
of  beauty  nor  of  feeling,  two  things  belonging  almost 
exclusively  to  fine  art :  we  are  speaking  of  the  authentic 
recording  of  facts  of  permanent  interest ;  and  I  mean  to 
say,  not  that  color  is  not  precious,  —  for  no  painter  could 
think  that,  —  but  that,  as  a  fact  of  permanent  interest, 
perfect  accuracy  in  the  masonry  of  a  building  may  be  of 
more  consequence  than  the  color  of  its  mosses. 

Now,  as  a  record  of  plain  ordinary  matters  of  fact,  the 
photograph  is  perfectly  reliable,  and  all  good  painting  is 
unreliable.  You  cannot,  for  instance,  when  looking  at  the 


138  The  Relation  between 

most  labored  picture  on  the  walls  of  the  Academy,  be 
quite  sure  that,  if  you  count  the  stones  in  a  castle-wall, 
you  will  ascertain  the  number  of  real  stones  in  the  real 
castle-wall ;  on  the  contrary,  you  may  be  quite  sure  that 
no  such  degree  of  accuracy  is  to  be  got  from  any  painter. 
But  a  photograph  would  have  given  you  the  fact  quite 
precisely.  And  in  this  quality  of  perfect  reliableness  for 
plain  every-day  facts  lies  the  peculiar  value  of  the  photo- 
graphic art.  It  cannot  give  us  one  picture,  but  it  will 
give  us  millions  of  most  reliable  memoranda  containing  an 
infinite  amount  of  useful  information.  It  cannot  give  the 
most  precious  truths  of  nature,  but  there  is  no  testimony 
so  trustworthy  for  large  classes  of  ordinary  facts,  such  as 
all  the  world  wants. 

The  discovery  of  photography  was  contemporaneous 
with  the  immense  increase  of  a  certain  want  which  it  per- 
fectly supplied.  A  kind  of  art  was  wanted  which  should 
record  simple  facts,  and  do  it  cheaply.  A  poor  soldier's 
wife  can  now  get  a  more  authentic  miniature  of  her 
husband  for  one  shilling,  than  a  rich  lady  could  have  pro- 
cured a  century  ago  for  a  hundred  pounds.  An  emigrant 
in  Australia  can  have  a  picture  of  his  father's  house,  with 
every  well-known  and  beloved  detail,  for  less  money  than 
a  common  artist  would  charge  for  a  bad  pencil  sketch. 
An  architectural  student  can  buy  reliable  records  of  every 
building  of  any  consequence  in  Europe  for  a  few  shillings 
each,  any  one  of  which  is  of  more  value  to  him  than,  a 
whole  library  of  engravings.  A  mechanic  may  get  for  the 
price  of  an  evening's  carouse  at  the  alehouse  a  portrait  of 
his  favorite  engine  on  the  nearest  railway,  done  in  a  few 
seconds,  on  a  bit  of  glass  varnished  with  collodion,  and 
that  so  marvellously,  that  the  most  exquisite  Dutch 
picture  is  as  coarse  as  a  Haydon  in  comparison ;  and  so 
strict  and  rigid  in  its  accuracy  of  hard,  exact,  mechanical 
detail,  that  the  best'  draughtsman  in  England  might  have 
toiled  for  months  without  approaching  its  microscopic 
fidelity.  A  landed  proprietor  living  at  a  distance  from  his 
estate  may  easily  inform  himself  of  the  condition  of  his 
farm-buildings,  and  of  the  progress  of  external  repairs  and 


Photography  and  Painting.  139 

alterations,  by  commissioning  a  photographer  to  send  him 
from  time  to  time  a  photographic  report,  which  cannot 
possibly  be  falsified  by  his  agent ;  and  an  emperor  may 
inform  himself,  by  weekly  photographs,  of  the  progress  of 
public  works  in  the  remotest  corners  of  his  empire,  and 
see,  stone  by  stone,  the  growth  of  every  fortress  on  his 
frontier. 

Photography  fears  no  labor,  and  is  not  fastidious. 
With  good  atmospheric  conditions  and  pure  chemicals,  it 
does  not  in  the  least  signify  to  the  photographic  camera, 
whether  you  set  it  to  copy  a  Lancashire  factory,  or  a  sculp- 
tured cathedral ;  it  will  do  either  the  one  or  the  other 
accurately,  but  with  utter  indifference.  Photography  has 
neither  feeling  nor  choice ;  it  is  an  unconscious  slave,  dead 
to  all  affection.  Therefore  it  does  well  and  thoroughly  all 
that  heartless,  mindless  work,  which  the  old  topographic 
draughtsmen  used  to  do  so  badly  and  inadequately ;  for  if 
it  has  no  affections,  it  has  no  repugnances,  and  will  copy 
the  ugliest  house  in  England,  and  give  you  every  foolish 
ornament,  as  if  it  were  a  gem  of  sculpture  from  a  frieze  of 
Phidias.  In  short,  it  will  do  precisely  that  kind  of  unin- 
tellectual,  but  accurate  copyism  of  miscellaneous  objects, 
which  a  true  artist  has  no  business  with,  and  neither 
betray  the  impatience  of  the  painter,  nor  the  mockery  of 
the  caricaturist. 

By  doing  this  drudgery  cheaper  than  it  can  be  done  by 
hand,  the  direct  tendency  of  Photography  is  to  elevate  the 
position  of  the  painter,  since  it  restricts  him  more  and 
more  to  the  intellectual  fields  of  art,  ar^d  must  lead,  sooner 
or  later,  to  a  truer  definition  of  his  calling. 

As  a  means  of  art  education,  its  influence  on  the  public 
is  salutary.  In  spite  of  all  its  falsities,  photography  is 
the  best  teacher  of  the  first  element  of  criticism,  —  the 
knowledge  of  the  Facts  of  Form.  It  also  supplies,  what 
was  very  much  wanted,  a  court  of  appeal  whose  impar- 
tiality is  unimpeachable.  On  such  matters  of  fact  as  the 
structure  of  a  particular  kind  of  rock,  or  the  ramification 
of  some  definite  species  of  tree,  it  is  now  frequently 
possible  to  decide  a  question  by  reference  to  a  pho- 


140  The  Relation  between 

tograph   which    formerly  would   have    remained  open    to 
unceasing  dispute. 

Photography  can  neither  color  nor  compose  ;  there- 
fore color  and  composition  in  painting  will  be  felt  to  be 
more  precious  than  ever,  and  the  lovers  of  intellectual 
art  will  prize  its  peculiar  attributes  yet  more  highly  when 
they  come  to  perceive  the  immense  distance  which  these 
two  mighty  powers  place  between  it  and  all  photographic 
imitations  of  nature. 

As  a  reproducer  of  works  of  real  art  Photography  is  very 
precious.  How  inimitably  it  renders  the  magnificent 
sculpture  of  the  noblest  Gothic  architecture,  the  charac- 
ter of  every  statue  being  so  perfectly  given,  without  the 
intervention  of  any  second  person's  feeling,  that  it  is  just 
as  good  to  see  one  of  these  photographs  as  the  thing 
itself,  and  travelling  for  architectural  study  becomes 
almost  needless.  And  then  the  precious  details  of  mould- 
ering stones  that  no  painter  would  ever  copy  with  rev- 
erence enough  ;  their  texture  rendered,  as  our  art  can 
never  hope  to  render  texture,  not  by  coarse  dragging  of 
opaque  color  over  sticky  surfaces  of  varnish,  but  by  fair 
honest  drawing,  inconceivably  minute,  of  every  micro- 
scopic shadow  cast  by  the  projecting  grains  of  rough  stone. 
I  have  one  of  these  photographs  before  me.  It  is  of  the  great 
central  doorway  of  Amiens  Cathedral,  taken  obliquely,  so 
as  to  show  that  half  of  the  arch  that  the  sunshine  fell 
upon,  whilst  the  other  is  not  seen,  being  too  much  fore- 
shortened for  its  details  to  be  easily  distinguished,  even  if 
they  were  not  lost  in  a  black  depth  of  exaggerated  shade. 
There  is,  consequently,  rather  more  than  one-half  of  the 
sculpture  visible.  Now,  in  the  visible  part,  I  have  just 
counted  thirteen  great  statues,  and  a  hundred  and  forty 
smaller  figures,  without  including  those  in  twenty-six  bas- 
reliefs.  Here  is  a  whole  collection  of  the  best  and  noblest 
fine  art  in  the  world,  placed  by  photography  within  every- 
body's reach  for  a  few  francs.  I  remember  how  Mr.  Rus- 
kin,  in  his  pamphlet  on  pre-Raphaelitism,  after  alluding 
with  some  bitterness  and  much  justice  to  the  general 
silliness  of  our  painters  in  their  choice  of  subject,  sent 


Photography  and  Painting.  141 

the  reader  to  a  broken  bas-relief  at  Lincoln  to  see  if 
his  heart  would  not  break  too.  And  now  in  these  few 
short  years  nearly  all  the  best  old  bas-reliefs  in  Europe  have 
been  mirrored  for  us  marvellously  by  collodion  ;  and  the 
great  want  that  made  the  hearts  of  all  true  lovers  of  noble 
architecture  ache  with  grief  and  pain,  is  at  last  most 
richly  and  abundantly  satisfied.  The  photographers  have 
done  this  for  us  all ;  let  us  warmly  express  our  thanks  and 
appreciation. 

For  the  reproduction  of  pictures  many  persons,  and  one 
impersonal  but  not  the  less  powerful  entity,  the  Times 
newspaper  prefer  photography  to  engraving.  There  is, 
of  course,  the  fatal  objection  about  the  insensibility  to 
yellow  rays  in  the  negative,  with  the  result  that  what  is 
yellow  in  the  picture  comes  black  in  the  positive,  so  that  a 
golden  sunset  cannot  be  photographed  at  all ;  and  although 
a  yellow  dress  in  a  figure  picture  may  be  of  less  conse- 
quence, it  is  nevertheless  certain  that  the  arrangement  of 
light  and  shade  in  pictures  containing  yellow  will  always 
be  lost  in  the  photograph.  But  to  balance  this  the  advo- 
cates of  photography  insist  with  much  truth  on  the  absolute 
fidelity  with  which  it  renders  the  touch  peculiar  to  each 
painter,  and  also  the  unapproachable  perfection  of  its  ren- 
dering of  expression.  The  present  state  of  the  question 
appears  to  be  this :  pictures  that  will  translate  tolerably 
into  photography  are  photographed,  whilst  the  others  are 
let  alone  for  the  present.  Mr.  Ruskin  thinks  that  pho- 
tography will  supersede  engraving,  but  not  engravers, 
who,  he  believes,  will  find  easier  and  more  agreeable 
employment  in  translating  pictures  into  black  and 
white  pen  drawings,  to  be  afterwards  reproduced  by 
the  photograph.  By  this  intervention  of  the  draughts- 
man, we  should  have  a  gain  and  a  loss,  —  the  gain  in 
the  truth  of  light  and  shade,  no  longer  revolutionized 
by  the  photograph's  exclusive  sensibility  to  actinic  rays ; 
the  loss  in  the  authentic  and  autographic  qualities  of 
touch  and  expression.  A  third,  and  far  more  perfect 
way  in  which  paintings  by  living  artists  might  be  multi- 
plied for  the  public,  would  be  if  they,  and  not  the 


142  The  Relation  between 

engravers,  did  the  translation  into  light  and  shade,  the 
pen  drawing,  which  might  be  afterwards  fac-similed  by 
the  photograph.  Thus,  by  a  procedure  more  certain,  and 
better  within  command  than  etching,  original  and  authentic 
work,  of  first-rate  quality,  might  become  attainable  at  a 
very  moderate  price.  The  engravers  would,  of  course, 
still  be  necessary  for  the  interpretation  of  all  dead  artists, 
and  of  such  living  ones -as  were  too  much  occupied  with 
painting  to  have  time  or  inclination  for  this  pen  drawing. 

Painters  who  are  accustomed  to  design  a  carefully 
finished  cartoon  in  black  and  white  before  beginning  to 
paint,  may,  at  any  rate,  have  their  cartoons  perfectly 
reproduced  by  photography  without  the  intervention  of 
any  draughtsman  or  engraver;  and  such  reproductions  are 
so  perfectly  autographic  as  to  possess  a  far  higher  value 
than  any  kind  of  engraving.  The  only  objection  to  this 
is,  that  the  cartoon  is  never  so  minutely  careful  in  exe- 
cution as  the  finished  picture. 

In  favor  of  the  photographic  reproductions  of  oil-pic- 
tures it  is  right  to  observe  that,  although  entirely  false 
in  all  such  light  and  dark  as  depends  upon  color,  they 
are  far  nearer  to  the  picture  in  the  reproduction  of  its 
light  than  photographs  taken  from  nature  are  to  natural 
light.  There  are,  at  any  rate,  in  photographs  from  pic- 
tures, none  of  those  great  spaces  of  white  or  black 
vacancy  which  distress  and  dissatisfy  us  so  much  in  pho- 
tographs from  nature.  Does  the  reader  imagine  that  a 
photograph  from  nature  is  any  truer  in  its  translation  of 
color  ?  Does  he  fancy,  as  I  find  some  photographers  do, 
that  the  photographic  rendering  of  pictures  alone  is  false 
in  this  respect,  whilst  the  photographic  interpretation  of 
nature  is  true  ?  It  is  astonishing  to  hear  the  objection 
continually  raised  against  photographs  from  pictures,  that 
they  do  not  translate  their  color  truly  into  black  and 
white  as  an  engraving  does,  but  change  all  its  arrange- 
ments, when  the  very  people  who  make  the  objection 
accept  the  photographic  translation  of  Nature's  coloring  as 
trustworthy.  I  suppose  it  is  because  they  have  only 
looked  at  celebrated  pictures,  and  have  never  really  looked 


Photography  and  Painting.  143 

at  any  natural  scene  ;  but  to  anybody  who  has,  the  pho- 
tographic interpretation  of  nature  is  considerably  less 
satisfactory  than  its  interpretation  of  art. 

With  reference  to  drawings  and  etchings  the  objection 
about  actinic  rays  does  not  hold ;  and  the  importance  of 
photography  as  a  means  of  reproducing  the  most  precious 
uncolored  works  of  elder  art,  is  now  fully  recognized, 
especially  by  artists.  I  have  one  or  two  of  Raphael's 
drawings,  so  perfectly  reproduced  that  even  the  texture  of 
the  paper  Raphael  used  is  accurately  imitated  on  the 
smooth  albumen  of  the  positive,  and  every  stain  of  it  too. 
I  remember  how  much  Mr.  Leslie  used  to  enjoy  a  set  of 
photographs  he  had  from  Rembrandt's  etchings,  and  how 
thoroughly  he  appreciated  the  value  of  photography  as  an 
authentic  reproducer  of  such  works.  The  photographic 
reproductions  of  free  sketches  by  great  men  are  quite 
above  all  competition  by  means  of  engraving. 

The  conclusions  we  have  arrived  at  in  the  course  of  this 
inquiry  may  be  briefly  summed  up  as  follows  :  — 

Photography  and  painting  are  for  ever  independent  of 
each  other,  and  there  is  no  manner  of  rivalry  possible 
between  them.  Each  has  its  own  path. 

Painting  does. not  need  the  help  of  photography,  and  in 
practice  can  be  little  served  by  it,  except  for  occasional 
reference. 

Because  painting  deals  with  truths  not  attainable  by 
photography,  as  the  relations  of  light  and  color,  and  the 
imaginative  interpretation  as  opposed  to  the  literal  imita- 
tion of  nature. 

Nevertheless,  photographic  memoranda  of  isolated  facts 
may,  when  intelligently  consulted,  be  of  much  utility  to 
painters. 

To  art  in  general  photography  has  rendered  several  ines- 
timable services. 

First,  by  relieving  it  of  the  drudgery  of  detailing  com- 
monplace facts  where  imagination  and  feeling  are  not 
wanted,  and  a  sense  of  beauty  would  only  inflict  unprofit- 
able suffering  on  an  artist  who  could  not  find  any  thing  to 
satisfy  it. 


144  Photography  and  Painting. 

And  as  leading,  consequently,  to  a  clearer  understand- 
ing on  the  part  of  the  public  of  the  nature  of  fine  art  as 
distinguished  from  unintelligent  copyism. 

And  as  affording  a  sound  basis  for  criticism  by  putting 
within  everybody's  reach  an  encyclopaedia  of  the  rudi- 
mentary facts  of  nature. 

And  lastly,  by  reproducing  works  of  real  art  in  an 
authentic  and  reliable  manner. 


Word  Painting  and  Color  Painting.         145 

VI. 
WORD  PAINTING  AND    COLOK  PAINTING. 

r  I  ^HE  comparison  between  words  and  colors,  as  means 
•*•  for  the  expression  of  artistic  ideas,  has  for  a  long 
time  possessed  a  great  attraction  for  me ;  and  as  it  is  a 
matter  which  very  closely  concerns  all  workers  in  litera- 
ture and  painting,  I  intend  here  to  offer  such  results  as  I 
have  been  able  to  arrive  at;  so  far,  at  least,  as  they 
may  influence  the  practical  labors  of  those  who  write 
or  paint. 

If  we  examine  a  single  coat  of  arms,  we  shall  at  once 
perceive  that  its  describableness  is  due  entirely  to  artistic 
poverty. 

"  Paly  wavy  of  six,  or  and  azure,  a  lion  rampant  pean, 
on  a  chief  gules,  three  crosses  fleury  ermine." 

I  have  selected  the  most  elaborate  coat  I  can  recollect. 
If  I  had  chosen  the  most  simple,  as,  for  instance,  "  Ar- 
gent a  bend  sable,"  the  artistic  poverty  would  have  been 
more  evident.  But  a  shield  of  fifty  quarterings  is  infi- 
nitely poorer,  artistically,  than  the  commonest  natural 
object,  and  therefore  infinitely  easier  to  describe. 

For,  first  of  all,  there  is  no  gradation  in  heraldry.  The 
colors  are  all  crude;  or,  azure,  and  gules  merely  mean 
gold  leaf,  ultramarine,  and  vermilion,  just  as  they  come 
from  the  colorman's. 

And  again,  the  variety  in  the  forms  is  finite ;  it  is  even 
exceedingly  limited.  "Paly  wavy  of  six"  —  a  herald 
knows  at  once  what  that  means ;  he  has  drawn  it  a 
hundred  times.  "  A  lion  rampant "  —  the  creature  and 
its  three  or  four  attitudes  are  kept  in  stock  in  every 
heraldic  mind  ready  for.  immediate  application.  And  the 
cross  fleury  being  a  rigid,  conventional  form,  is  as  easy  to 
remember  as  the  -[-  in  algebra. 

10 


146         Word  Painting  and  Color  Painting. 

Let  us  see  whether  we  can  make  an  equally  accurate 
description  of  some  similar  objects  in  nature. 

"  Paly  wavy  or  and  azure."  There  is  often  wavy  or 
and  azure  in  sunset  skies  amongst  the  upper  clouds  ;  but,  as 
every  curve  in  it  is  full  of  unexpected  and  indescribable 
changes,  and  every  hue  of  it  full  of  infinite,  and  most 
subtle,  and  most  inexplicable  gradations,  how  can  words 
ever  blazon  this  Divine  heraldry  at  all  ?  There  are  lions 
enough  in  Africa  yet,  in  spite  of  English  rifles ;  but  no 
words  can  perfectly  picture  the  least  of  their  mighty 
movements.  "  Pean,"  "  ermine,"  "  gules,"  "  or,"  and 
"  azure  !  "  good  enough  for  the  splendor  of  lordly  pride  ; 
but  not  good  enough  for  one  wreath  of  perishing  cloud,  nor 
one  feather  in  a  wild  duck's  wing ! 

Now  all  good  writers  who  ever  lived  have  frankly  con- 
fessed the  impossibility  of  accurate  description  of  natural 
scenery  in  words.  Good  writers  scarcely  ever  attempt  it. 
Their  descriptions,  even  when  most  elaborate,  are  no  more 
than  stimulants  to  the  reader's  imagination,  rather  trying 
to  make  him  imagine  a  scene  for  himself  than  vainly 
endeavoring  to  convey  to  him  a  truthful  picture  of  some- 
thing he  has  not  seen.  All  word  description  that  goes 
beyond  this,  though  it  may  be  highly  accurate  and  inge- 
nious, is,  so  far  as  the  reader  is  concerned,  positively  use- 
less. 

For  the  accurate  realization  of  a  complex  word  descrip- 
tion, even  if  it  were  possible,  which  it  is  not,  would  require 
an  effort  of  the  intellect  so  enormous  that  not  one  mind  in 
a  million  would  be  capable  of  it,  unless  previously  trained 
for  years  to  practical  landscape  painting. 

Even  the  best  word  painting  of  our  own  day,  whenever 
it  reaches  a  certain  point  of  elaboration,  is  probably  only 
comprehensible  by  devoted  students  of  nature,  and  they 
always  realize  something  else  than  the  object  described. 

Word  painting  of  the  human  figure  seems  easier  than 
that  of  landscape,  because  the  varieties  of  human  form  are 
restrained  within  more  definite  limits  than  the  varieties  of 
mountains  and  clouds.  But  it  is  an  error  to  suppose  that 
words  are  capable  of  any  thing  like  accuracy  even  in  figure 


Word  Painting  and  Color  Painting.         147 

painting.  The  signalement  attached  to  an  ordinary  French 
passport  is  a  kind  of  description  where  a  rigidly  proeaic 
accuracy  would  be  really  of  use,  and  is  seriously  attempted. 
The  object,  of  course,  is  to  render  the  passport  not  trans- 
ferable. But  passports  are  transferable,  notwithstanding 
the  signalement,  and  are  very  frequently  transferred.  A 
young  French  lady,  whom  I  know,  was  travelling  very 
lately  with  a  passport  which  she  might  have  transferred  to 
almost  any  other  young  French  lady  of  her  age  and  com- 
plexion ;  and  as  her  complexion  is  the  most  usual  in 
France,  her  passport  would  have  been  available  for  most 
of  her  young  friends  in  case  of  an  emergency.  A  simple 
expedient  is  now  open  to  continental  governments  which 
would  effectually  render  passports  non-transferable.  A 
government  has  only  to  require  that  a  photographic  por- 
trait of  the  bearer  of  every  passport  be  printed  from  a 
glass  negative  upon  the  paper  of  the  passport  itself,  and 
the  passport  would  be  of  use  to  nobody  but  its  owner. 
That  is  to  say,  a  government  which  desires  to  have  the 
signalements  on  its  passports  accurate  must  abandon  wfrrd 
painting,  which  cannot  be  accurate. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  difficulty  of  conveying  a  true 
image  of  anybody  by  words,  take  the  common  case  of  a 
child  who  has  lost  its  mother  at  birth.  If  no  portrait  of 
the  mother  exists,  that  child  has  no  chance  of  ever  getting 
to  know  what  she  was  like.  All  the  neighbors  know ;  all 
the  child's  elder  relations  know ;  he  is  never  tired  of  asking 
questions  about  his  mother,  and  they  answer  all  his 
questions  as  well  as  they  can  ;  but  they  cannot,  by  means 
of  words,  transfer  to  his  brain  the  image  of  her  which 
exists  so  vividly  in  their  own  ;  and  he  goes  on  through 
life,  actually  surrounded  by  a  thousand  truthful  portraits  of 
his  mother,  impressed  on  the  brains  of  his  friends  and 
contemporaries,  not  one  of  which,  in  spite  of  all  his  ardent 
longing,  will  he  ever  be  permitted  to  see. 

The  art  of  word  painting  has  its  secrets.  Its  first  law 
is  brevity.  It  is  not  possible  to  produce,  with  an  elaborate 
word-picture,  that  single-stroke  effect  which  makes  the 
power  of  an  elaborate  color-picture.  For  a  long  word 


148         Word  Painting  and  Color  Painting. 

description  must  first  be  read  from  beginning  to  end  before 
there  is  any  chance  of  a  perfect  image  being  produced  by 
it ;  and  then  the  reader  must  gather  up  and  fit  together  all 
the  parts  of  it  like  a  child's  puzzle-map  —  no  easy  matter, 
especially  for  indolent  or  half-interested  readers.  It  is  on 
this  account  that  long  word  descriptions  are  generally  so 
terribly  fatiguing,  and  make  such  exhausting  demands  on 
the  reader's  energy. 

4  The  next  secret  is  to  attempt  nothing  that  words  are 
manifestly  incapable  of  doing.  It  is  needless  to  aim  at 
accuracy.  Very  rude,  broad,  imperfect  sketching  is  all 
that  words  are  fit  for.  To  try  after  imitative  accuracy  is 
a  mere  waste  of  time,  and  is  certain  to  make  the  reader 
skip  the  passage,  if  he  does  not  shut  the  book. 

The  object  of  the  word  painter  being  to  make  the  reader 
imagine  a  scene  for  himself,  he  must  profoundly  under- 
stand the  capacity  of  ordinary  people's  imaginations,  and 
take  good  care  not  to  go  beyond  it. 

The  commonest  trick  of  famous  and  clever  word  paint- 
ers is  to  dazzle  people  by  sounding  phrases  and  brilliant 
metaphors  into  the  belief  that  they  have  really  received  a 
very  noble  impression,  when  the  whole  force  of  the  im- 
pression, if  analyzed,  would  be  found  to  be  due  to  the 
music  of  the  sentences  and  the  splendor  of  the  metaphors, 
not  to  the  natural  scene  which  is  the  pretext  for  them. 

Our  best  modern  English  word  painters  are,  amongst 
the  poets,  Tennyson,  Shelley,  Byron,  Scott,  Wordsworth, 
and  Keats,  in  order  of  excellence. 

And  of  prose  writers,  Ruskin  stands  quite  alone ;  then 
after  him,  but  at  a  great  distance,  come  about  a  dozen 
others  whom  it  is  needless  to  particularize. 

Of  all  these  I  give  to  Tennyson  the  first  place.  Even 
Ruskiu,  the  best  prose  word  painter  who  ever  lived, 
says  that  no  description  of  his  is  worth  four  lines  of 
Tennyson. 

Tennyson  seems  to  me  to  understand  the  limitations  of 
word  painting  better  than  any  other  man.  There  is  not 
the  slightest  straining  after  unattainable  fidelities  in  any 
one  of  his  descriptions.  They  go  no  farther  than  the 


Word  Painting  and  Color  Painting.        149 

limits  of  the  art  allow ;  and  they  are  always  exquisite  as 
far  as  they  go.  This  is  the  highest  praise  that  can  be 
given  to  any  artist,  because  it  implies  his  perfect  concep- 
tion of  the  boundaries  of  his  art,  and  his  mastery  over  all 
that  lies  within  those  boundaries. 

Shelley's  painting  has  a  remarkable  resemblance  to 
Turner's,  which  I  think  no  critic  has  hitherto  pointed 
out.  There  are  the  same  splendor,  color,  and  mystery; 
the  same  love  of  clouds  and  water;  the  same  unreality 
and  abstraction.  It  seems  to  me  that  if  Shelley  had 
given  himself  a  pictorial  instead  of  a  literary  training, 
he  might,  if  he  had  lived,  have  rivalled  Turner  on  his  own 
ground. 

Byron's  word  painting  is  too  passionate  to  be  in  any  way 
accurate.  It  owes  all  its  power  to  fire  of  language  and 
strength  of  imagery.  The  reader  is  never  really  moved 
by  the  scene  described,  but  by  the  vivid  images  and  allu- 
sions it  calls  forth  from  the  poet. 

Scott's  descriptions  are  affectionate  and  often  very  spir- 
ited in  their  way,  but  not  always  artistic.  They  are 
seldom  pictorially  conceived.  They  harmonize,  however, 
.  very  well  with  the  vigorous  human  action  of  his  characters. 
His  view  of  nature,  though  he  seems  to  have  enjoyed 
color,  was  perhaps  rather  that  of  a  sportsman  happy  to 
be  out  in  the  open  air  than  that  of  a  devoted  student  of 
landscape. 

Keats  might  have  made  an  excellent  word  painter  if  he 
had  lived ;  but  I  do  not  share  Mr.  Ruskin's  too  humble 
veneration  for  what  he  actually  wrote.  His  words  are 
often  very  cleverly  fitted  in  quaint  odd  ways,  and  do,  no 
doubt,  attain  a  peculiar  power  which  I  dare  say  would 
be  difficult  to  imitate,  if  it  were  desirable,  which  it  cer- 
tainly is  not.  Mr.  Ruskin  himself  is,  when  a  little  excited, 
a  much  better  writer  of  English  than  Keats,  in  his  brief 
career,  ever  came  to  be. 

Wordsworth  knew  more  of  natural  scenery  than  any 
other  writer  not  also  a  painter  —  knew  as  much,  I  should 
say,  as  many  a  professed  landscape  painter ;  but  as  an 
artist  in  words  he  attempted  too  much.  I,  who  am  a 


150         Word  Painting  and  Color  Painting. 

painter  and  who  know  the  scenery  Wordsworth  described, 
can  vouch  for  the  delicate  truthfulness  of  his  descriptions. 
They  contain  evidences  of  observation  very  rare  in  liter- 
ature ;  but  they  are  without  effect  on  readers  ignorant  of 
landscape,  because  they  require  powers  of  memory  and 
imagination  in  the  reader,  which  no  reader  who  is  not  a 
profound  observer  of  nature  can  possibly  possess. 

Mr.  Ru skin's  art  of  description  in  prose  is  in  every  way 
wonderful.  He  complained  somewhere  that  his  readers 
missed  the  arguments  in  his  books,  and  dashed  at  the 
descriptions.  A  novel  complaint  truly !  What  author  but 
Mr.  Ruskin  ever  found  his  descriptions  dangerously  seduc- 
tive ?  Other  people's  descriptions  are  skipped  habitually 
by  the  prudent  reader.  Mr.  Ruskin's,  it  appears,  do  posi- 
tive injury  to  the  graver  and  more  argumentative  parts  of 
his  writings.  He  is  decidedly  the  first  author  who  has 
made  landscape  description  too  attractive.  And  when  we 
try  to  get  at  the  reason  for  this  attractiveness  in  his  word- 
pictures,  we  very  soon  see  that  it  is  mainly  owing  to  an 
unusual  magnificence  of  language,  and  a  studied  employ- 
ment of  metaphor. 

Charlotte  Bronte  was  by  no  means  a  weak  sketcher  in 
words :  many  of  her  descriptions  prove  great  literary 
power.  They  are  more  concentrated  than  Mr.  Ruskin's, 
but  neither  so  profound  nor  so  grandly  conceived. 

Thackeray  has  great  and  stirring  powers  of  description, 
which  he  too  seldom  exercises. 

Marian  Evans  does  really  good  landscape  sketching,  of' 
an   intensely   truthful    character.      There   are   no    better 
quiet   pictures  in  their  way  in  any  literature  than  the 
brief  ones  which  occur  in  "Adam  Bede,"  and  the  "  Mill 
on  the  Floss." 

George  Sand  has  a  passionate  love  for  nature,  with  the 
intensest  feeling.  She  understands  the  expression  of  land- 
scape, and  renders  it  with  great  power.  Her  interest  in 
landscape  seems  to  strengthen  as  she  grows  older,  her 
latest  novels  being  remarkable  for  their  evidence  of  close 
and  recent  observation  of  nature.  Her  descriptions  are 


Word  Painting  and  Color  Painting.         151 

thoroughly  masterly  arid  artistic,  and  I  rank  them  very 
high  as  specimens  of  what  may  be  done  with  words. 

Lamartine's  are  less  passionate,  more  contemplative, 
more  elaborately  worked  out  as  a  whole,  less  elaborately 
perhaps  in  the  most  essential  and  significant  details.  In 
his  prose  they  often  become  extremely  tiresome,  but 
never  in  his  verse,  whose  exquisite  construction  carries  the 
reader  on. 

Of  these  writers  I  will  take  Tennyson,  giving  extracts 
from  him  only,  for  the  limits  of  my  space  would  not  allow 
of  an  adequate  study  of  the  others. 

And  first,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  the  Tennyson  pictures  are 
by  no  means  numerous.  There  are  scarcely  fifty  of  them 
in  all.  So  little  faith  has  this  prince  of  poet  laudscapists 
in  the  powers  of  verbal  art,  that  he  employs  it  very  rarely 
and  very  briefly. 

The  first  that  occur  are  in  "  Mariana." 

With  blackest  moss  the  flower-plots 

Were  thickly  crusted,  one  and  all : 
The  rusted  nails  fell  from  the  knots 

That  held  the  peach  to  the  garden-wall. 
The  broken  sheds  look'd  sad  and  strange  : 

Unlifted  was  the  clinking  latch ; 

Weeded  and  worn  the  ancient  thatch 
Upon  the  lonely  moated  grange. 

Here  there  is  no  attempt  at  form,  and  little  at  color. 
The  moss  is  simply  all  described  as  blackest.  This  is  near 
enough  for  poetry  ;  but  a  painter  knows  that  this  black 
moss  would,  in  nature,  be  full  of  purples  and  greys  infin- 
itely various.  The  gradations  in  the  moss  on  the  flower- 
plots  are  not  so  much  as  alluded  to,  for  a  volume  of 
description  would  not  have  conveyed  them  to  the  reader's 
mind.  The  sadness  and  strangeness  of  the  broken  sheds 
may,  however,  be  mentioned  verbally,  because  these  are 
mental  feelings,  which  are  the  peculiar  province  of  lan- 
guage. It  is  not  the  broken  sheds  that  are  in  themselves 
sad,  but  their  appearance  excites  that  feeling  in  the  poet, 
who  conveys  the  feeling  to  his  reader  when  he  could  not 


152         Word  Painting  and  Color  Painting. 

possibly  convey  the  form.  The  extreme  slightness  of  the 
description  of  the  grange  itself  is  equally  apparent :  it  is 
lonely,  and  moated,  and  thatched,  and  the  thatch  is  out  of 
repair  —  no  more. 

Now,  let  us  suppose  that  I  were  to  select  this  subject 
for  a  picture ;  what  then  ?  As  Tennyson  treats  it  slightly 
in  words,  can  I  also  treat  the  subject  with  equal  slightness 
on  canvass  ? 

No.  Because  the  art  of  color  painting  is  so  infinitely 
superior  to  the  art  of  word  description  that  far  more  is 
required  of  it,  and  it  cannot  be  so  rude  and  imperfect  if  it 
would.  I  have  already  pointed  out  the  impossibility  of 
painting  moss  as  rudely  as  Tennyson  describes  it.  For  his 
blackest  moss  I  must  set  an  elaborate  palette  of  purples 
and  greys,  with  perhaps  one  touch  of  real  black  on  one  of 
the  nearer  flower-plots ;  whereas  he  blackens  them  all 
alike,  superlatively  and  indiscriminately,  as  if  there  were 
no  such  thing  as  gradation  in  the  world. 

And  then  the  forms  of  the  mosses  ?  Every  patch  of 
moss  must,  in  a  picture,  have  a  form  of  some  sort ;  for  in 
nature  every  patch  of  moss  has  an  outline  designed  on  the 
object  it  attaches  itself  to,  which  is  not  less  delicate  and 
elaborate  than  the  outline  of  England  on  the  sea.  Tenny- 
son, of  course,  takes  care  not  to  talk  about  the  forms  of 
the  mosses  ;  he  is  too  much  of  an  artist  to  waste  his  words. 
A  poem  the  length  of  "  Paradise  Lost  "  would  not  de- 
scribe accurately  the  form  of  the  mosses  on  one  of  the 
flower-plots.  And  the  plots  themselves  ;  how  many  were 
there  of  them  ?  Tennyson  did  not  count  them :  saw  the 
flower-plots  in  the  vision,  but  took  no  heed  of  their  number. 
But  in  my  picture  my  flower-plots  must  of  necessity  be 
countable,  and  I  must  decide  how  many  I  will  put.  No 
answer  from  the  poet.  But  the  painter  cannot  avoid  these 
details.  His  superior  power  of  description  is  accompanied 
by  the  need  of  larger  and  more  accurate  knowledge. 

And  the  garden-wall,  what  were  its  height  and  length  ? 
Was  it  of  brick  or  of  stone?  And  the  broken  sheds;  ruin- 
ous we  see,  but  how  large  were  they,  how  shaped,  and  on 


Word  Painting  and  Color  Painting.         153 

what  side  of  the  house  were  they  situated?  And  then  the 
most  important  thing  of  all,  the  grange.  Not  one  word  of 
architectural  detail.  The  reader  is  to  imagine,  as  he  best 
can,  a  moated  grange,  —  any  old  house  with  a  ditch  round 
it  will  do.  Tennyson  knew  that  the  imaginative  reader 
would  make  a  very  good  moated  grange  for  himself,  and 
that  the  dull,  unimaginative  reader  would  never  be  able  to 
realize  the  most  elaborate  description,  so  it  was  of  no  use 
to  attempt  one.  But  no  painting  could  possibly  be  so 
vague.  A  house  in  a  picture  must  have  definite  architect- 
ural forms:*  They  cannot  be  dispensed  with.  And  the 
painter  here,  as  in  every  thing  else,  requires  hard  knowl- 
edge of  forms  and  colors,  where  the  poet  will  satisfy  us 
with  a  sweet  sounding  word. 

The  fourth  stanza  of  "  Mariana "  contains  a  little  de- 
tailed foreground  picture  in  the  pre-Raphaelite  manner :  — 

About  a  stone-cast  from  the  wall 
A  sluice  with  blackened  waters  slept, 

And  o'er  it  many,  round  and  small, 
The  cluster'd  marish  mosses  crept. 

Hard  by  a  poplar  shook  alway, 

All  silver  green  with  gnarled  bark  : 
For  leagues  no  other  tree  did  mark 

The  level  waste,  the  rounding  gray. 

It  would  have  been  difficult  to  compress  more  of  Nature 
into  so  confined  a  compass  of  verse :  but  the  reader  will 
easily  see  for  himself  that  a  painter  would  either  have  to 
invent,  or  to  seek  out  in  Nature,  a  thousand  details  that 
the  poet  has  not  given  us.  The  shape  of  the  sluice  is  not 
mentioned,  nor  its  size  either,  and  the  coloring  of  the 
marish  mosses  is  not  even  hinted  at.  The  poplar  was 
silver  green,  but  there  are  some  millions  of  poplars  in 
France,  "  all  silver  green,  with  gnarled  bark,"  so  that  this 
does  not  amount  to  a  description  of  any  particular  poplar. 
So  one  might  say  of  an  Academy  model,  that  she  was  "  all 
flesh  color,  with  a  smooth  skin,"  but  that  would  not  amount 
to  a  recognizable  portrait  of  the  individual  woman.  The 
waste  was  level,  and  the  horizon  rounded  the  landscape 


154         Word  Painting  and  Color  Painting. 

with  gray ;  but  every  artist  knows  that  in  the  flattest,  dull- 
est countries,  there  are  no  two  landscapes  alike,  and  yet 
this  sketch  is  as  general  as  that  of  the  poplar,  and  is  ap- 
plicable to  any  treeless  flat. 

It  is  like  the  opening  sketch  in  "  The  Dying  Swan  : "  — 

The  plain  was  grassy,  wild  and  bare, 
Wide,  wild,  and  open  to  the  air, 
Which  had  built  up  everywhere 
*  An  under-roof  of  doleful  gray. 

But  this  is  made  rather  more  definite  in  character  by 
the  distance,  which  is  well  put  in,  and  true  in  effect :  — - 

Some  blue  peaks  in  the  distance  rose, 
And  white  against  the  cold  white  sky, 
Shone  out  their  crowning  snows. 

And  the  coloring  of  the  mosses  on  the  water  is  given 
this  time :  — 

And  far  thro'  the  marish  green  and  still 

The  tangled  water-courses  slept, 
Shot  over  with  purple,  and  green,  and  yellow. 

A  painter,  however,  would  have  to  know  where  the  pur- 
ple and  green  and  yellow  were,  and  what  proportion  of  the 
field  of  vision  was  occupied  by  each.  And  he  would  have 
to  paint  not  merely  purple,  but  a  thousand  varieties  of  it ; 
not  merely  green,  but  infinite  gradations  of  bluish  green, 
yellowish  green,  and  green  much  neutralized  by  red ;  not 
merely  yellow,  but  delicate  changes  of  gray  and  gold  in 
the  yellow.  For  the  painter  goes  so  infinitely  beyond  the 
writer  in  landscape,  that  the  most  detailed  written  pictures 
are  almost  as  crude  as  heraldic  blazoning  in  comparison 
with  painters'  work. 

There  are  two  magnificent  lines  in  "  Oriana  : "  — 

When  the  long  dun  wolds  are  ribb'd  with  snow 
And  loud  the  Norland  whirlwinds  blow. 

It  would  take  a  painter  a  month  to  realize  the  first  line 
on  canvas.  When  snow  lies  in  the  hollows  of  rough 


Word  Painting  and  Color  Painting.         155 

land,  it  assumes  outlines  of  a  complexity  quite  infinite 
and  exceedingly  difficult  to  draw.  It  is  all  very  well  for 
a  poet  to  say  "  ribb'd,"  and  so  have  done  with  the  diffi- 
culty, just  as  he  would  say  of  a  ship's  hull  in  process 
of  construction,  that  it  was  "  ribb'd,"  using  the  same  word 
for  both.  And  it  is  the  very  word  which  gives  so 
much  truth  and  value  to  the  two  capital  lines  which 
Wordsworth  made  for  Coleridge,  and  which  Coleridge 
used  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  part  of  the  "Ancient 
Mariner : "  — 

And  thou  art  long,  and  lank,  and  brown, 
As  is  the  ribbed  sea-sand. 

The  poets  may  use  the  same  word  for  snow  in  mountain 
stream  furrows,  and  sand  corrugated  by  waves,  but  a 
painter  could  not  render  both  with  the  same  kind  of  work. 
In  the  one  case,  he  would  have  to  understand  and  declare 
an  immense  variety  of  facts  concerning  mountain  anatomy, 
of  which  the  poet  might  remain  ignorant  without  injury  to 
his  verse,  and,  in  the  other  case,  a  totally  different  order 
of  facts  concerning  aqueous  action  on  sand. 

The  "  Lady  of  Shalott "  opens  with  a  charming  descrip- 
tion :  — 

On  either  side  the  river  lie 
Long  fields  of  barley  and  of  rye, 
That  clothe  the  wold  and  meet  the  sky ; 
And  thro'  the  field  the  road  runs  by 

To  many-tower'd  Camelot ; 
And  up  and  down  the  people  go, 
Gazing  where  the  lilies  blow 
Round  an  island  there  below, 

The  island  of  Shalott. 

Willows  whiten,  aspens  quiver, 
Little  breezes  dusk  and  shiver 
Thro'  the  wave  that  runs  for  ever 
By  the  island  in  the  river 

Flowing  down  to  Camelot. 
Four  gray  walls  and  four  gray  towers, 
Overlook  a  space  of  flowers, 
And  the  silent  isle  imbowers 

The  Lady  of  Shalott. 


156         Word  Painting  and  Color  Painting. 

This  is  the  best  and  most  perfect  word-picture  we  have 
yet  come  upon.  Yet  there  is  not  one  form  in  it,  and  only 
the  very  slightest  hint  of  color.  The  willows  whiten,  and 
the  walls  and  towers  are  gray,  that  is  all  the  coloring. 
Form  there  is  none,  except  the  length  of  the  fields,  if  we 
allow  that  shapeless  length  is  indeed  form  at  all.  We  are 
told  nothing  of  the  height  of  the  walls,  nor  of  the  sort  of 
battlements  upon  them,  nor,  indeed,  whether  they  had 
battlements.  We  are  not  even  informed  whether  the  towers 
were  round  or  square.  To  form  any  idea,  whatever,  from 
such  a  description  as  this,  it  is  necessary  that  the  reader 
should  set  his  own  imagination  vigorously  to  work,  which, 
in  fact,  every  reader  does,  according  to  his  capacity,  though 
in  most  instances  unconsciously.  When  I  analyze  the  pic- 
ture that  rises  before  me  on  reading  these  two  stanzas,  I 
find  that  I  have  little  authority  for  it  in  Tennyson.  It  is 
a  composition  formed  from  memories  of  scenes  I  know, 
fitted  together  without  the  slightest  regard  for  topography, 
For  the  fields  I  see  are  English,  like  the  scenery  of  Kent ; 
and  the  road  is  English ;  I  confess  to  an  anachronism  in 
the  road,  for  the  one  I  see  is  most  decidedly  macadamized ; 
but  "  many  tower'd  Camelot "  is,  in  my  dream,  not  English 
at  all,  but  an  old  towered  town  on  the  Rhone,  opposite 
Avignon,  with  a  few  more  towers  and  no  modern  nouses. 
The  island  of  Shalott  is  one  I  remember  on  the  Yonne. 
And  the  four  gray  walls  and  four  gray  towers  are  a  rem- 
iniscence of  Wales. 

The  peculiar  powers  and  defects  which  distinguish 
word  painting  from  color  painting  appear  to  be  briefly 
these :  — 

Words  describe  the  emotions  of  the  spectator  better 
than  the  scene  he  sees. 

They  convey  mental  impressions,  not  material  forms. 

Colors  convey  material  forms  more  accurately  than 
mental  emotions. 

Words  are  quite  incapable  of  rendering  form  and  color 
in  any  but  the  very  rudest  way.  They  may,  however, 
indicate  great  delicacy  of  perception  in  the  person  who 
uses  them. 


Word  Painting  and  Color  Painting.         157 

Colors,  in  skilful  hands,  may  be  made  to  render  form 
and  hue  so  very  accurately,  that  to  have  seen  a  good 
topographical  picture  of  a  place  is  almost  as  good  as 
having  seen  the  place  itself. 

Words  may  be  very  vague  and  still  quite  intelligible. 
As,  for  instance,  you  may  say  "  the  church  had  a  tower," 
without  so  much  as  specifying  whether  the  church  was 
built  of  brick  or  stone,  in  Gothic  or  classical  architecture  ; 
whether  it  was  large  or  small,  old  or  new ;  whether  the 
tower  were  tall  9r  short,  had  a  spire  or  not,  &c.,  &c. 

Colors,  on  the  other  hand,  must  be  definite,  or  they 
would  cease  to  be  intelligible.  In  a  colored  picture  of 
a  church  the  architecture  must  not  only  be  stated,  but 
worked  out  with  some  degree  of  detail,  so  that  not  only 
would  the  spectator  be  aware  at  once  what  the  architect- 
ure and  materials  were,  but  he  would  receive  an  impres- 
sion of  a  certain  number  of  windows,  &c. 

Unless  a  word-picture  is  insufferably  tedious,  the  facts 
conveyed  by  it  will  be  very  few. 

A  color-picture  will  record  innumerable  facts  without 
becoming  tiresome  at  all. 

A  word-picture,  if  long,  cannot  be  combined  into  one 
whole  without  a  great  intellectual  effort  on  the  part  of 
the  reader. 

A  color-picture  is  combined  into  one  whole  by  the 
artist,  and  the  spectator  cannot,  if  he  would,  see  one  part 
out  of  its  relation  to  the  other  parts,  whose  influence  it 
cannot  escape. 

Artists  in  words  can  reach  more  brilliant  effects  of 
light  than  artists  in  paint,  because  they  recall  the  light 
of  nature. 

Artists  in  color  are  bound  down  to  dingy  white  lead. 

Artists  in  words  help  themselves  out  by  acoustic  de- 
scription; as,  for  instance,  they  add  to  the  force  of  a 
storm  at  sea  by  telling  of  the  roar  of  the  wind,  the  can- 
vas rattling  like  musketry,  the  thunder  pealing,  and  the 
breakers  dashing  against  the  cliffs  with  a  report  as  of 
cannon. 

Color  art  is  silent. 


158          Word  fainting  and  Color  Painting. 

Words  may  be  true,  because  they  go  such  a  little  way. 
It  is  quite  true,  for  example,  that  Rouen  Cathedral  is  a 
magnificent  specimen  of  Gothic  architecture. 

But  no  picture  of  Rouen  Cathedral  ever  was,  or  ever 
can  be,  so  absolutely  true  as  the  above  statement,  because 
in  all  painting  there  must  be  innumerable  little  inactera- 
cies  of  detail,  owing  to  the  imperfection  of  human  handi- 
work ;  and  yet,  in  painting,  this  cannot  be  avoided,  as  in 
writing,  by  the  total  omission  of  detail,  because  in  painting 
such  omission  is  direct  falsehood  in  itself. 

The  office  of  the  word  painter  is  to  get  people  to  look 
at  art  and  nature,  to  pierce  through  their  dulness  and 
indifference  with  earnest  and  powerful  language. 

The  office  of  the  color  painter  is  to  give  an  idea  of 
beautiful  natural  scenes  to  people  living  at  a  distance 
from  them. 

I  had  not  spacer  in  this  Essay  to  compare  the  pictorial 
and  literary  novel.  I  had  intended  to  take  Hogarth's 
"  Marriage  a  la  mode "  as  an  example  of  what  may  be 
done  in  the  pictorial  novel  on  an  elaborate  scale,  and 
Cruikshank's  "  Bottle  "  series  as  a  pictorial  tale.  I  should 
then  have  shown  how  far  such  works  might  be  consid- 
ered to  contend  with  the  literary  novel  in  the  delineation 
of  character. 

The  subject  of  this  Essay,  if  developed  in  all  its  branches, 
might  very  easily  be  made  to  fill  a  volume.  For  the  sake 
of  any  reader  who  is  interested  enough  in  the  matter  to 
pursue  it  for  himself,  I  will  observe  briefly : 

That  so  far  as  the  art  of  painting  concerns  itself  with 
man,  as  a  subject,  it  is  undoubtedly  inferior,  and  very  far 
inferior,  to  written  language. 

For  the  art  of  painting  renders  the  bodily  shape  and  so 
much  of  mind  as  the  body  expresses,  but  language  reveals 
the  most  secret  thoughts. 

Considered  with  reference  to  the  body  alone,  painting 
is  as  superior  to  writing  as  it  is  in  landscape. 

But  considered  as  interpretations  of  mental  character, 


Word  Painting  and  Color  Painting.         159 

written  narratives  are  quite  incomparably  superior  to  any 
possible  series  of  pictures. 

Hogarth's  famous  series  is  as  meagre,  in  comparison  to 
one  of  Fielding's  novels,  as  a  word-picture  by  Tennyson 
to  a  pre-Raphaelite  landscape. 

We  know  the  persons  by  sight,  which  is  an  advantage 
the  Novelists  do  not  give  us ;  but  we  know  very  little 
about  them  except  their  appearance. 

People  say  that  the  character  and  history  of  each  indi- 
vidual are  written  on  his  face,  so  that  such  pictures  as 
Hogarth's  ought  to  be  as  good  a  revelation  of  character 
as  a  novel  by  Thackeray. 

Such  an  assertion  as  this  betrays  a  total  want  of  ob- 
servation. 

For,  in  ordinary  .life,  does  the  aspect  of  a  man,  even 
when  combined  with  the  chief  visible  facts  of  his  history, 
open  for  us  his  inner  mind  and  life,  and  his  secret  history? 
Not  in  the  least. 

And  are  bodily  appearances  easy  to  interpret  ?  I  know 
an  unlucky  peasant  who  was  endowed  with  a  great  red 
nose  by  nature:  he  is  one  of  the  most  abstemious  men  in 
England,  yet  enjoys  the  reputation  of  being  a  drunkard, 
merely  because  his  nose  is  red.  If  Hogarth  had  put  him 
in  a  picture,  Mr.  Sala,  and  other  commentators,  would 
have  moralized,  on  "  the  drunkard's  "  nose. 

To  compare  word  painting  and  linear  drawing  in  stories 
of  human  life  it  is  only  necessary  to  separate  Thackeray's 
illustrations  to  "  Vanity  Fair  "  from  the  novel  itself,  and 
compare  the  two.  The  illustrations,  without  the  novel, 
would  hardly,  I  think,  convey  a  very  full  or  adequate 
idea  of  the  characters. 

Even  Doyle's  illustrations  to  "  The  Newcomes,"  which 
are  much  better,  are  weak  in  comparison  to  the  words 
they  illustrate.  We  could  not  guess  the  history  and  char- 
acter of  the  Colonel  merely  from  the  pictures  of  him,  still 
less  Ethel's. 

For  the  novelist  has  always  this  immense  advantage 
over  the  painter,  that  he  can  ma*ke  his  characters  utter 


160          Word  Painting  and  Color  fainting. 

their  own  sentiments,  and  report  to  us  the  very  words 
they  used. 

The  men  and  women  that  painters  represent  are  all 
dumb. 

Again,  the  novelist  can  narrate  a  connected  series  of 
mental  changes  and  circumstantial  events,  whose  neces- 
sary development  and  final  accomplishment  may  come 
about  very  gradually  and  slowly. 

The  painter,  on  the  other  hand,  can  only  give  us  de- 
tached glimpses,  each  of  one  second  of  time. 

This  single-stroke  effect,  this  concentration  of  the  labor 
of  months  to  realize  the  effect  of  a  moment,  and  that  upon 
a  canvas  which  shall  be  comprehended  at  one  glance,  —  a 
power  which  in  landscape,  gives  the  painter  such  an  im- 
mense advantage  over  the  writer  with  his  tiresome  con- 
secutiveness  of  detail,  —  happens  to  be  just  as  great  a 
disadvantage  in  the  delineation  of  character,  where  the 
literary  process  of  consecutive  revelation,  not  instantane- 
ous illumination,  is  the  process  exactly  suited  to  the 
purpose. 

In  landscape  and  human  physical  form,  nearly  all  the 
advantages  lie  with  color  painting. 

In  illustrations  of  human  character,  all  the  advantages 
are  on  the  side  of  the  writer. 

For  colors  paint  things  best,  but  words  convey  thoughts 
best. 


Transcendentalism  in  Painting.  161 


VII. 

TRANSCENDENTALISM  IN  PAINTING. 

E  connection  between  the  word  "transcendental"  as 
originally  employed  by  Kant,  and  the  same  word  as 
I  employ  it  in  the  present  chapter,  may  be  briefly  indicated 
before  we  consider  the  especial  subject  of  the  chapter 
itself. 

Kant  used  the  word  to  designate  the  class  of  ideas  exist- 
ing in  the  human  mind  independently  of  experience. 
Emerson  calls  all  persons  who  rely  on  their  own  intuitions 
rather  than  on  the  experience  of  others,  Transcendentalists. 
Transcendentalism  in  painting  may  be  defined  as  the  long- 
ing to  realize  artistic  ideals  hitherto  existing  only  in  the 
mind  of  the  artist.  Whether  such  an  ideal  is  purely  tech- 
nical, as,  for  example,  possible  processes  not  hitherto 
employed  ;  or  artistic,  in  the  restricted  sense  of  composi- 
tions of  an  order  for  which  there  is  no  precedent ;  or  scien- 
tific, as  natural  effects  yet  unrecorded,  the  transcendental 
tendency  is  to  realize  the  dream  and  aspiration  of  the 
artist's  own  mind,  rather  than  simply  to  reproduce  the 
Results  of  other  people's  experience. 

The  transcendental  state  of  mind  is  therefore  directly 
opposed  to  the  whole  feeling  of  the  ordinary  practical 
intellect.  The  transcendentalist  takes  no  interest  in  the 
merely  doing  over  again  what  others  have  done  before  him, 
but  kindles  into  enthusiasm  with  the  exciting  hope  of  real- 
izing his  own  ideal.  The  practical  man  has  no  faith  in 
intuitions  ;  does  not  believe  in  the  possibility  of  any  thing 
not  yet  actually  done,  and  restricts  all  his  action  to  the  safe 
and  mechanical  reproduction  of  such  ideas  of  other  men 
as  he  has  already  seen  embodied  in  material  forms.  The 
two  classes  of  men  —  idealists  and  materialists  —  are  equally 
11 


162  Transcendentalism  in  Painting. 

necessary  to  mankind,  though  necessary  in  very  different 
proportions  ;  and  neither  of  these  two  classes  has  any  right 
to  despise  the  other. 

The  transcendentalists  think  much,  but  usually  produce 
little ;  the  materialists  produce  much,  but  do  not,  in  the 
strict  sense,  think  at  all.  The  transcendentalists,  however, 
are  accustomed  to  maintain  that  by  mere  thinking  they  can 
increase  their  practical  skill. 

Thus  it  is  said  that  Ole  Bull,  the  celebrated  Norwegian 
violinist,  arrived  at  his  most  wonderful  effects  less  by  man- 
ual practice  than  meditation.  He  practised  less,  and 
thought  more,  than  other  violinists.  This  is  quite  in  keep- 
ing with  his  reflections  after  hearing  Paganini.  Ole  Bull 
actually  sold  his  last  shirt  to  hear  that  mighty  master,  and, 
having  heard  him,  instead  of  saying  like  the  crowd  that 
nothing  new  was  possible  after  that,  began  to  seek  after 
hitherto  unknown  effects  that  even  Paganini  had  not  dis- 
covered. Both  these  facts  indicate  clearly  that  Ole  Bull 
was  a  musical  transcendentalist,  and  his  long  retirement 
confirms  it.  A  true  transcendentalist  dislikes  publicity, 
and  loves  to  cultivate  himself  in  solitude. 

No  man  has  ever  reached  commanding  eminence  without 
some  touch  of  transcendentalism.  Even  in  great  con- 
querors this  spirit  lurks  and  works.  Their  discontent  with 
the  extent  of  their  territorial  dominion,  and  eager  desire 
to  enlarge  it,  correspond  to  a  similar  feeling  in  the 
philosopher  with  regard  to  the  boundaries  of  present  intel- 
ligence. Conquerors  are,  in  fact,  the  visible  types  an^, 
examples  of  the  intellectual  conquerors,  and  Napoleon  is 
never  so  grand  and  commanding  a  figure  as  on  the  Alpine 
snow.  Every  transcendentalist  thrills  with  pleasure  when 
he  hears  of  that  passage  of  the  Alps ;  for  he  also  would 
cross  the  mighty  barriers  that  bar  him  from  the  golden 
fields. 

The  English  mind  does  not  welcome  the  transcendental 
philosophy,  because  it  prefers  that  sort  of  intellectual  repose 
which  permits  the  most  energetic  and  continuous  labor. 
Politically,  the  French,  are  transcendentalists,  and  the. 
English  not.  The  most  practical  minds  have  no  love  for 


Transcendentalism  in  Painting.  163 

this  philosophy,  because  they  instinctively  perceive  it  to  be 
a  great  hindrance  to  productiveness.  It  is  impossible  to 
produce  so  long  as  we  only  dream  about  what  we  ought  to 
produce.  This  philosophy  cannot  become  habitual  either 
in  nations  or  individuals  without  destroying  productive 
energy.  Its  most  salutary  action  is  intermittent,  by  epochs. 
Transcendental  epochs  are  necessary  to  progress,  but  they 
ought  to  leave  us  long  intervals  for  hard,  undoubting  labor. 
Else  all  this  fine  philosophy  would  end  in  mere  weak  wish- 
ing, without  the  possibility  of  realization. 

I  have  observed  that  in  particular  instances  the  abuse  of 
this  tendency  of  the  intellect  has  resulted  in  a  permanent 
state  of  intellectual  lassitude  and  debility.  It  is,  in  fact,  an 
abuse  of  the  ideal,  or  imaginative  faculty,  and  will  naturally 
produce  the  same  disastrous  effects  upon  the  mind  that 
sensual  excesses  do  upon  the  body.  Habitual  transcenden- 
talists  in  thought  are  any  thing  but  transcendental  in  action.  , 
They  surpass  nobody  ;  and  by  waiting  all  their  lives  long 
before  deciding  what  to  do  are  easily  distanced  by  persons 
of  less  imaginative  power,  but  greater  practical  force.  So 
this  philosophy  is  at  the  same  time  useful  to  a  man's  ambi- 
tion, and  dangerous  to  it.  With  regard  to  the  arts,  and 
especially  that  of  painting,  I  intend  here  to  point  out  the 
advantages  of  transcendentalism,  and  to  indicate  its  peculiar 
dangers. 

In  all  labors  there  are  three  stages  —  the  mechanical,  or 
imitative  ;  the  transcendental  or  reflective ;  and  the  intelli- 
gently practical.  I  do  not  say,  mind,  that  every  laborer 
passes  through  all  these  stages.  The  vast  majority  stop  at 
the  first ;  a  few  reach  the  second  ;  still  fewer  attain  to  the 
third. 

It  is  obvious  that  to  enter  upon  the  second  phase,  that  of 
reflection,  a  new  order  of  faculties  is  needed.  Every  human 
being  possesses  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  the  faculty  of 
imitation,  or  the  tendency  to  dp  what  he  has  seen  other  peo- 
ple do.  But  the  skeptical  or  examining  faculty,  that  which 
looks  ((TXfWojwat),  is  rarer,  and  it  is  this  power  which  leads 
men  into  the  second  or  reflective  phase.  And,  difficult  as 
it  may  be  to  enter  this  transcendental  region,  it  is  yet  more 


164  Transcendentalism  in  Painting. 

difficult  to  pass  through  it,  out  on  the  other  side,  into  the 
third  phase,  the  intelligently  practical. 

The  men  who  remain  always  in  the  imitative  stage  are 
useful  to  society  as  copyists  and  reproducers  of  other  men's 
thoughts.  The  men  who  get  on  as  far  as  the  second  or 
reflective  stage,  and  stop  short  there,  are  of  no  good  to 
anybody  that  I  see,  except  as  a  warning,  and  for  their  con- 
tinual protest  against  low  standards  of  criticism,  and  their 
dissatisfaction  with  all  imperfect  and  inadequate  perform- 
ance. But  persons  who  have  reached  the  third  phase,  and 
are  not  only  reflective  but  practical,  usually  achieve  worthy 
results.  They  attain  to  the  highest  mark  their  several 
natures  are  capable  of  reaching.  They  are  the  best  and 
swiftest  workers.  Henceforth  they  lose  no  time.  Knowing 
the  limits  of  art,  they  do  not  expect  impossibilities.  No 
unforeseen  difficulty  arrests  them.  Having  learned  from 
the  transcendental  philosophy  the  inadequacy  of  all  means, 
and  yet  the  exact  degrees  of  utility  and  availableness  of 
every  material  aid,  and  having  lost  the  childish  expectation 
of  too  great  and  too  immediate  results  ;  having  learned  the 
limits  of  their  own  powers,  and  ascertained  by  reflection 
what  objects  they  ought  to  strive  for,  these  transcendental- 
ists,  when  they  do  become  practical,  are  the  most  intensely 
practical  of  men. 

In  our  art  an  intelligent  critic  would  easily  point  out  the 
transceridentalists.  The  Prince  of  them  all  is  Leonardo. 
I  have  not  at  hand  his  Trattato  della  Pittura  ;  but  in  Rio's 
life  of  him  there  is  a  passage  very  much  to  our  purpose 
which  is  founded  on  that  treatise.  "  Pour  lui,  le  peintre 
dont  les  connaissances  ne  vont  pas  au-dela  de  son  ouvrage, 
et  qui  a  le  malheur  d'etre  content  de  lui-meme,  est  un 
homme  qui  a  manque  sa  vocation ;  au  contraire,  celui  qui 
n'est  jamais  satisfait  de  son  oeuvre,  a  toutes  les  chances  de 
devenir  un  excellent  ouvrier.  II  est  vrai  qu'il  produira 
peu ;  mais  tout  ce  qu'il  produira  sera  admirable  et  attray- 
ant."  This  dissatisfaction  with  their  own  work  is  one  of 
the  most  striking  characteristics  of  the  transcendentalists. 
Rio  speaks  elsewhere  of  "  cet  incurable  me'contentement  de 
soi-meme  qui  le  tourmentait  sans  relache  et  le  fo^ait  & 


Transcendentalism  in  Painting.  165 

refaire  ou  k  retoucher  vingt  fois  la  meme  chose."  Ludo- 
vico  Dolci,  in  his  Dialogue  on  Painting,  represents  Leo- 
nardo as  "a  sublime  genius,  always  discontented  with  his  own 
works."  Again,  Leonardo  used  to  say  that  theory  was  the 
general,  and  practice  the  soldiers,  thereby  attributing  a 
degree  of  importance  to  theory,  which,  though  perfectly 
just,  would  never  have  been  accorded  by  any  merely  prac- 
tical person.  Again,  his  strong,  and  in  some  respects  un- 
fortunate, tendency  to  extend  the  boundaries  of  his  activity, 
was  quite  transcendental.  He  was  always  seeking  new 
realms.  His  French  biographer  thus  alludes  to  this  dis- 
position :  "  Cette  disposition  a  etendre  plutot  qu'  a  affermir 
ses  conquetes  intellectuelles,  s'etait  deja  manifested  chez 
lui  des  son  enfance,  et  ne  le  quitta  plus  pendant  le  cours  de 
sa  longue  carriere,  a  laquelle  manqua  toujours  1'unite  de 
but,  non  par  Peffet  d'une  application  superficielle,  'mais  par  la 
promptitude  avec  laquelle  des  horizons  nouveaux  s'ouvraient 
a  son  esprit."  This  continual  opening  of  "  new  horizons  " 
is  the  element  of  general  progress  contained  in  the  tran- 
scendental philosophy,  yet  often  disqualifies  the  individual 
for  signal  success  in  his  especial  vocation.  Leonardo, 
indeed,  aided  the  progress  of  both  science  and  art 
very  appreciably,  as  I  shall  show  in  another  place. 
With  respect  to  his  artistic  faculty,  Rio  says :  "  On  peut  dire 
que,  seul  entre  tous  les  artistes,  par  la  force,  la  hauteur  et 
la  souplesse  de  son  genie,  il  s'eleva  jusqu'a  la  synthese  de 
Videalisme  et  du  realisme."  He  made  endless  preparations 
before  beginning  a  serious  task,  "  preparatifs  qui  avaieut 
pour  unique  but  de  satisfaire  sa  conscience  d  artiste."  In 
him  the  transcendental  period  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  limited  to  certain  years  of  youth,  but  r.i  her  to  have 
alternated  with  his  practical  state  at  irregula;*  intervals  to 
the  very  close  of  life.  Thus,  nobody  could  ever  be  sure 
that  he  would  execute  a  commission  entrusted  to  him, 
because,  even  when  amongst  his  multifarious  occupations, 
he  might  have  found  time  to  do  it,  ten  to  one  he  would 
just  happen  to  be  in  his  ideal  or  transcendental  state,  with 
a  settled  conviction  that  all  human  labor  was  vanity,  es- 
pecially his  own.  Hence  his  great  bronze  statue,  that  was 


166  Transcendentalism  in  Painting. 

to  have  been,  never  got  beyond  the  clay  model.  Italy 
waited  ten  years  whilst  Leonardo  prepared  his  studies  for 
this  statue.  He  got  it  at  length  modelled  in  clay,  and,  in- 
stead of  casting  it  in  bronze  immediately,  thenceforth  took 
no  farther  interest  in  the  matter,  so  that  the  casting  was 
delayed  till  Ludovico  could  not  furnish  the  bronze  on 
account  of  the  war  with  France.  Then  the  French  sol- 
diers came  and  amused  themselves  with  shooting  at  the 
clay  model,  which  they  found  convenient  as  a  target ;  and 
thus  this  great  and  noble  work,  universally  recognized  by 
the  Italians,  during  its  brief  existence,  as  the  best  of  its 
kind  in  Italy,  wa"s  lost  for  ever  to  the  world.  The  portrait 
of  Mona  Lisa  was  four  years  on  Leonardo's  easel.  Vasari 
says :  "  After  loitering  over  it  for  four  years,  he  finally 
left  it  unfinished."  His  Adoration  of  the  Magi  in  the 
Uffizj  is  unfinished.  In  his  Last  Supper,  at  Milan,  the 
head  of  Christ  was  never  finished,  from  incapacity  on  the 
part  of  the  artist  to  realize  his  too  lofty  ideal.  It  is  related 
that  the  Prior  of  the  monastery  where  Leonardo  painted 
this  work  "could  in  no  way  comprehend  wherefore  the 
artist  should  sometimes  remain  half  a  day  together  ab- 
sorbed in  thought  before  his  work  without  making  any 
progress  that  he  could  see.  This  seemed  to  him  a  strange 
waste  of  time,  and  he  would  fain  have  had  him  work  away 
as  he  could  make  the  men  do  who  were  digging  in  his- 
garden,  never  laying  the  pencil  out  of  his  hand."  The 
Prior  complained  of  Leonardo's  idleness  to  the  Duke. 
Leonardo  condescended  to  explain  to  the  Duke,  "  that 
men  of  genius  are  sometimes  producing  most  when  they 
seem  to  be  laboring  least,  their  minds  being  occupied  in 
the  elucidation  of  their  ideas,  and  in  the  completion  of 
those  conceptions  to  which  they  afterwards  give  form  and 
expression  with  the  hand."  And  with  reference  to  the 
slow  progress  of  the  equestrian  statue,  Vasari  says  :  "  there 
is  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  very  greatness  of  his 
most  exalted  mind,  aiming  at  more  than  could  be  effected, 
was  itself  an  impediment ;  perpetually  seeking  to  add  ex- 
cellence to  excellence  and  perfection  to  perfection."  Some 
Servite  monks,  who  gave  a  commission  to  Leonardo,  wish- 


Transcendentalism  in  Painting.  167 

ing  him  to  get  on  with  it,  conceived  the  hospitable,  but 
somewhat  imprudent  idea  of  lodging  him  and  all  his  house- 
hold, supplying  the  expenses  of  the  whole.  But  he  kept 
them  waiting  a  long  time,  and  made  no  beginning.  "  At 
length,  however,"  says  Vasari,  "  he  prepared  a  cartoon." 
Piero  Soderini  paid  Leonardo  every  month  whilst  he 
worked  for  him,  but  Leonardo  did  not  complete  the  work, 
and  so  honorably  offered  to  return  the  money  received. 
"  It  is  related,"  says  Vasari,  "  that  Leonardo,  having  re- 
ceived a  commission  for  a  certain  picture  from  Pope  Leo, 
immediately  began  to  distil  oils  and  herbs  for  the  varnish, 
whereupon  the  pontiff  remarked :  '  Alas !  the  while,  this 
man  will  assuredly  do  nothing  at  all,  since  he  is  thinking 
of  the  end  before  he  has  made  a  beginning  to  his  work.' " 
There  seems  to  have  been  amongst  Leonardo's  customers, 
a  very  general  conviction  that  he  was  not  to  be  relied  upon. 
Vasari,  in  a  general  observation  on  this  characteristic,  gives 
a  sufficient  reason  for  it :  "  Leonardo,  with  his  profound 
intelligence  of  art,  commenced  various  undertakings,  many 
of  which  he  never  completed,  because  it  appeared  to  him 
that  the  hand  could  never  give  its  due  perfection  to  the 
object  or  purpose  which  he  had  in  his  thoughts,  or  beheld 
in  his  imagination."  In  short,  he  was  a  transcendentalist, 
too  strongly  imbued  with  that  philosophy  for  sustained  ac- 
•tion,  yet  far  from  being  quite  paralyzed  by  it,  or  we  should 
probably  never  have  heard  of  him.  His  habit  of  seeking 
for  discoveries,  even  in  the  most  ridiculous  trifles,  his  end- 
less longing  after  the  unknown,  and  his  aspirations  towards 
unattainable  perfection,  are  so  many  signs  and  symptoms 
of  transcendentalism.  He  tells  the  Duke  Ludovico  il 
Mauro  that  the  difference  between  himself  and  the  other 
military  engineers  of  his  day  is,  that  their  warlike  instru- 
ments do  not  differ  from  those  in  common  use,  whereas 
he  has  discovered  secrets.  I  think  it  much  to  be  regret- 
ted that  these  tendencies  should  have  possessed  Leonardo 
all  his  life.  Up  to  thirty,  he  might  have  learned  the 
doctrines  of  this  exacting  and  imperious  philosophy ;  but 
at  that  age  he  was  already  great  enough  to  have  quitted 
her  schools.  What  a  long  life  he  lived !  and  how  richly 


168  Transcendentalism  in  Painting. 

he  was  gifted  !  and  what  a  poor,  inadequate  result  he  has 
left  in  comparison  with  his  astonishing  powers  and  his 
length  of  days  !  A  faded  fresco  on  a  broken  plaster  wall,  a 
few  fair  canvases,  a  treatise  or  two,  and  one  short  phil- 
osophical poem  !  He  made  some  wonderful  guesses  and 
discoveries,  and  achieved  a  colossal  fame ;  but  so  long  as 
his  immortal  name  shall  be  remembered  by  men,  it  can 
never  be  meditated  on  otherwise  than  mournfully.  O 
splendid  Leonardo !  the  many-sided ;  a  narrower  nature 
might  have  yielded  more  abundant  fruit !  It  is  enough  to 
make  one  hate  all  transcendental  philosophers  to  think 
that  so  mighty  a  genius  was  all  but  lost  to  our  art,  because 
he  would  play  with  their  most  benumbing  and  paralyzing 
torpedo  of  a  philosophy. 

It  is  odd  that  the  realists  should  be  more  disposed  to 
transcendentalism  than  what  are  called  the  idealists ;  but 
this  seeming  anomaly  may  be  thus  accounted  for :  The 
realist  compares  his  work  continually  with  nature,  whereas 
the  traditional  idealist  merely  obeys  certain  prescribed 
rules.  Leonardo,  the  most  transcendental  of  painters, 
was  so  loyal  to  Nature  as  to  assert  that  she  alone  was  the 
mistress  of  superior  intellects.  And  you  will  always  find 
that  the  most  intense  realists  in  our  art  are  the  most  ex- 
posed to  the  seductions  of  the  transcendental  philosophy ; 
for  their  endless  striving  after  nature  is  a  perpetual  dis-* 
couragement,  and  their  best  success  seems  to  them  bnt 
failure. 

Therefore,  it  is  likely  that  this  philosophy  has  never 
had  so  many  votaries  in  our  art  as  now,  when  the  victory 
of  the  realist  schools  of  Europe  may  be  looked  upon  as 
at  last  assured.  Every  other  young  painter  in  England 
is  a  transcendentalist.  There  is  small  hope  for  those  who 
do  not  pass  through  this  phase  of  intellectual  experience. 

This  does  not  affect  the  truth  of  what  I  have  just  stated 
at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter  respecting  the  general 
rarity  of  transcendentalists.  What  I  said  was  this  :  — 

"  In  all  labors  there  are  three  stages  —  the  mechanical, 
or  imitative ;  the  transcendental,  or  reflective  ;  and  the 
intelligently  practical.  I  do  not  say,  mind,  that  every 


Transcendentalism  in  Painting.  169 

laborer  passes  through  all  these  stages.  The  vast  major- 
ity stop  at  the  first ;  a  few  reach  the  second ;  still  fewer 
attain  to  the  third." 

I  spoke,  you  perceive,  of  all  labors,  not  of  ours  alone. 
Now,  if  you  take  the  mass  of  human  occupations,  you  will 
find  that  the  most  part  are  favorable  rather  to  the  imita- 
tive than  to  the  reflective  man.  In  most  trades  reflection 
and  discovery  are  superfluous,  generally  positively  injuri- 
ous to  the  pocket.  In  the  manufacturing  districts,  where, 
I  suppose,  there  is  as  much  successful  energy  and  ability 
as  you  will  readily  find  anywhere,  the  atmosphere  is  by 
no  means  favorable  to  transcendentalism.  Cotton  manu- 
facturers with  an  ideal  turn  usually  ruin  themselves  by  the 
premature  adoption  of  new,  and  as  yet  imperfect  inven- 
tions, and  a  want  of  steadiness  in  their  habits  of  business. 
If  Leonardo  had  lived  in  Rochdale  forty  years  ago,  he 
would  have  contributed  very  excellent  inventions  to  the 
cotton  manufacture ;  but  he  could  never  have  profitably 
worked  a  mill.  Cotton  spinners  who  take  to  studious  and 
meditative  habits  usually  awake  from  their  reveries  to  find 
themselves  in  the  Gazette.  And  so  in  other  active  and 
busy  trades.  If  you  pause  too  much  to  reflect,  you  are 
ruined.  And,  after  all,  if  you  can  turn  out  as  good  twist 
as  your  neighbors,  at  as  low  a  figure,  I  see  no  reason  why 
you  should  bother  yourself  about  inventions,  as  poor  Sam- 
uel Crompton  did.  In  trade,  invention  may  occasionally 
lead  to  fortune,  but  as  a  general  rule  mere  industry  is 
safer.  This  is  so  commonly  understood  by  the  more  pru- 
dent tradesmen,  that  they  rest  contentedly  in  the  tradi- 
tional or  imitative  stage,  leaving  the  poor  geniuses  to 
improve  upon  their  instruments  and  machines. 

But  in  our  art  the  conditions  are  entirely  reversed.  A 
painter  who  is  a  realist,  does  not  merely  compare  his 
paint  with  his  neighbor's  paint,  —  is  not  satisfied  merely 
because  he  can  turn  out  as  good  an  article  at  as  low  a 
figure  as  the  rest  of  his  trade,  —  but,  on  the  contrary,  is 
always  comparing  it  with  appearances  in  Nature,  which 
are  quite  other  than  paint,  and  with  which  all  rivalry  is 
hopeless.  The  bitter  and  discouraging  lessons  that  this 


170  Transcendentalism  in  Painting. 

continual  comparison  forces  upon  him,  are  to  an  intelli- 
gent young  painter  nothing  less  than  an  elementary  course 
of  transcendental  philosophy  ;  and  after  learning  a  while 
in  this  terrible  school,  there  is  no  telling  what  will  become 
of  him.  His  future  fate,  circumstances  and  his  own  degree 
of  strength  must  determine.  He  will  either  lapse  into  in- 
activity and  despair,  in  which  case  a  speedy  and  total 
change  of  profession  is  the  best  thing  to  be  hoped  for 
him,  or  he  will  get  through  his  transcendentalism  as  a 
child  gets  through  its  teething,  having  thereby  gained  new 
instruments  for  the  acquisition  of  a  stronger  nourishment. 
A  great  deal  of  the  present  prevalence  of  this  philoso- 
phy is  due  to  Mr.  Ruskin  and  the  pre-Raphaelites.  Mr. 
Ruskin  is  almost  as  transcendental  as  Leonardo.  And 
here  let  me  observe,  in  passing,  that  although  the  tran- 
scendentalists  are  slow  and  unreliable  as  workmen,  so  that 
when  they  begin  any  thing  there  is  no  telling  whether  they 
will  ever  finish  it,  they  are  yet  the  best  and  most  stimu- 
lating of  critics.  Emerson,  iii  his  Lecture  on  the  Trans- 
cendentalists,  thus  describes  their  critical  tendency.  He 
speaks  of  "  the  extravagant  demand  they  make  on  human 
nature.  That,  indeed,  constitutes  a  new  feature  in  their 
portrait,  that  they  are  the  most  exacting  and  extortionate 
critics.  Their  quarrel  with  every  man  they  meet,  is  not 
with  his  kind,  but  with  his  degree.  There  is  not  enough 
of  him  ;  that  is  the  only  fault.  They  prolong  the  privilege 
of  childhood  in  this  wise,  of  doing  nothing,  but  making 
immense  demands  on  all  the  gladiators  in  the  lists  of 
action  and  fame."  No  critic  ever  answered  so  precisely 
to  this  description  as  Ruskin  does.  The  immense  service 
he  has  rendered  to  our  art  has  been  by  unceasing  and  im- 
portunate demanding.  He  has  never  enough  of  good 
things.  He  is  possessed  with  so  insatiable  a  hunger  and 
thirst  for  all  that  is  excellent  in  art,  that  a  thousand  artists 
toil  from  year  to  year  without  satisfying  him.  One  might 
give  a  list  of  the  things  he  has  asked  for,  and  got,  and  yet 
he  is  still  asking.  Let  him  ask !  for  to  demand,  and  exact, 
and  stimulate  to  nobler  and  sterner  aims,  are  his  office  and 
mission  upon  earth.  Mr.  Brett  gave  him  chalk  hills,  and 


Transcendentalism  in  Painting.  171 

he  asked  for  the  Val  d'Aosta ;  the  Val  d'Aosta  was  ac- 
cordingly mirrored  for  him  with  a  marvellous  fidelity,  and 
then  he  wanted  more  of  soul  than  the  mirror  gave.  Once 
he  wanted  apple-blossoms,  and  suddenly  at  his  word  the 
walls  of  the  Academy  blossomed  like  an  orchard.  This 
drew  from  him  the  observation  that  the  greatest  men  did 
not  like  flowers,  so  the  flowers  faded  away  from  Trafalgar 
Square. 

In  Mr.  Ruskin's  own  work,  the  transcendental  habits  of 
Leonardo  are  frequently  betrayed.  His  long  and  careful 
collecting  of  materials  ;  the  extent  of  his  range,  including 
architecture  and  painting  as  the  most  prominent  subjects, 
with  politics  and  theology  and  literary  criticism  filling  up 
the  background,  occasionally  to  the  detriment  of  the  matter 
in  hand ;  his  absolute  want  of  method  and  self-direction, 
leading  him  in  his  best  works  to  give  us  all  sorts  of  disqui- 
sitions having  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  subjects  of 
the  chapters  where  they  occur ;  his  constant  study  of  Na- 
ture and  ceaseless  reference  to  her  as  the  only  authority  ; 
his  contempt  for  tradition ;  and,  as  an  artist,  his  exquisite 
refinement  arid  delicacy  of  hand,  to  be  acquired  only  by  the 
severest  self-criticism  ;  all  these  things  are  so  many  marks 
and  symptoms  by  which  I  know  him  for  a  transcenden- 
talist. 

And  the  effect  Mr.  Ruskin  has  had  on  our  art  may  be 
generally  described  in  this  manner ;  namely,  that  he  has 
inoculated  all  our  younger  painters  with  more  or  less  of 
his  own  transcendental  tendencies.  All  the  best  painters 
now  alive  in  England  are  striving  with  all  their  might, 
either  to  paint  what  no  one  else  ever  painted  before,  or,  if 
their  subjects  are  old  ones,  to  treat  them  more  truly  than 
they  ever  were  treated  before.  Our  English  School  is  in  a 
state  of  intense  aspiration  after  hitherto  unattained  per- 
fections, a  state  of  the  general  mind  sure  to  breed  tran- 
scendentalists  by  hundreds.  And  so  we  have  plenty  of 
them  of  both  sorts,  the  active  and  inactive. 

I  think  as  Mr.  Ruskin  is  the  best  example  of  a  critical 
transcendentalist  I  could  find  amongst  writers  on  art,  so 
Mr.  Holman  Hunt  is  the  most  illustrious  example  of  a 


172  Transcendentalism  in  Painting. 

transcendentalist  in  action.  The  whole  pre-Raphaelite 
movement  is,  indeed,  a  result  and  embodiment  of  this 
philosophy.  The  boundless  confidence  of  these  painters  in 
convictions  which  had  but  slight  support  at  first  beyond 
the  limits  of  their  own  consciousness,  their  decisive  prefer- 
ence of  internal  to  external  guides ;  their  firm  reliance  on 
principles  rather  than  persons  ;  their  courage  and  obstinacy 
in  opposition ;  their  laborious  obedience  to  the  idea  which 
impelled  them  beyond  the  sympathies  of  the  hour,  all  these 
things  indicate  a  transcendental  rather  than  a  materialistic 
state.  And  Mr.  Hunt  himself,  as  slow  and  reflective,  as 
thoughtful  and  as  fastidious  as  Leonardo,  only  more  con- 
centrated, is  the  most  perfect  example  of  active  transcen- 
dentalism in  our  art,  and  the  "  Christ  in  the  Temple  "  its 
noblest  result.  Fortunately  for  England,  Mr  Hunt  is  not 
also  by  profession  a  military  and  civil  engineer,  so  that  his 
pictures  may  have  a  fair  chance  of  being  finished. 

But  strong  and  gifted  must  that  painter  be,  who  with  a 
judgment  so  severe  and  exacting,  does  yet  attempt  to  real- 
ize his  conceptions  in  so  imperfect  a  material  as  paint.  To 
most  people,  when  once  their  ideal  rises  to  a  certain  height, 
thenceforth  all  execution  seems  vanity.  How  many  young 
painters  have  I  seen  in  the  Slough  of  Despond,  lost  in  the 
wild,  hopeless  dream  of  the  transcendentalist,  longing  after 
impossible  perfections.  It  is  not  so  to  the  same  extent  in 
any  other  art,  because  no  other  human  labor  suggests  com- 
parisons so  discouraging.  A  musician,  for  instance,  may 
sing  to  an  audience  which  is  not  just  fresh  from  a  chorus 
of  angels.  A  poet  has  to  contend  against  no  superhuman 
rivalry.  Even  a  sculptor  enters  into  no  hopeless  contest 
with  nature,  for  he  does  not  attempt  color  and  light,  the 
two  unattainable  things,  but  confines  himself  to  form  alone, 
which  is  quite  accurately  imitable.  But  the  painter  is 
always  in  the  presence  of  another  Painter,  with  whom  all 
rivalry  is  hopeless ;  and  the  traveller  comes  to  his  dingy 
canvases  with  eyes  still  dazzled  by  the  glitter  of  the 
glacier  and  the  splendor  of  the  sea. 

And  thus  in  our  art  transcendentalism  is  peculiarly  fatal 
to  productiveness.  Let  a  young  painter  resolve  that  he 


Transcendentalism  in  Painting.  173 

will  paint  entire  verity,  —  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and 
nothing  but  the  truth,  —  and  he  may  as  well  burn  palette 
and  brushes  at  once.  The  utmost  we  can  hope  for  is  to  be 
as  true  as  the  nature  of  our  means  and  materials  will  per- 
mit, —  a  vast  concession  to  falsity.  But  these  limitations 
of  materials  are  intolerable  to  the  ardent  aspirant.  He 
sees  so  vividly,  and  feels  so  strongly,  that  he  will  never  en- 
dure to  complete  any  of  his  attempts.  He  feels  them  to 
be,  at  the  best,  mockeries  and  makeshifts.  He  finds  it 
impossible  to  express  himself  in  paint.  He  will  try  lan- 
guage, perhaps,  and  write  poems,  because  the  poem  does 
not  pretend  to  imitate,  only  to  celebrate,  the  beauty  of  the 
universe.  Or,  if  he  has  courage  enough  to  stick  to  painting, 
he  will  push  imitation  to  its  utmost  limit,  like  Leonardo, 
and  Hunt,  and  Millais,  to  discover,  after  all,  that  art  is  less 
an  imitation  than  an  interpretation  of  nature. 


174  The  Law  of  Progress  in  Art. 

VIII. 
THE  LAW  OF  PROGRESS  IN  ART. 

npHE  course  of  artistic  or  other  discovery  appears  to 
-*•  be  very  much  the  same  as  the  succession  of  pro- 
cesses followed  by  an  artist  in  the  construction  of  a  single 
picture,  only  that  in  the  great  field  of  human  progress  the 
work  is  accomplished  by  the  race,  and  taken  up  succes- 
sively at  its  different  stages  by  relays  of  innumerable 
workers.  The  construction  of  a  picture  is  usually  effected 
very  much  as  follows.  First  a  rude  charcoal  sketch  to 
get  things  in  their  places,  and  to  indicate  the  division  of 
the  future  labor.  This  first  sketch  is  rude  to  such  a 
degree  that  persons  not  conversant  with  art  would  not 
know  what  was  meant  by  it,  most  of  the  curves  being  rep- 
resented by  angles  and  straight  lines  even  by  the  best 
figure  painters  ;  but,  however  rude,  it  is  extremely  useful 
as  a  marking  out  of  boundaries.  Then  comes  a  careful 
outline  of  the  principal  of  these  boundaries  ;  that  is,  the 
lines  enclosing  the  great  masses.  Then  within  these  lines 
the  dead  color  is  roughly  laid  —  roughly,  though  with 
consummate  foresight.  Then  comes  a  second  painting  in 
detail,  then  a  third  in  still  minuter  detail,  and,  with  some 
men,  even  a  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth,  of  detail  within  detail, 
film  over  film,  till  the  work  has  reached  the  highest  excel- 
lence possible  to  the  painter. 

Now,  the  history  of  human  art  in  its  great  relations  to 
the  whole  race  is  merely  a  repetition  of  this  process  on  a 
vast  scale,  extending  its  minor  processes  through  ages,  and 
employing,  not  merely  the  fingers  of  one  workman,  but  of 
all  the  best  workmen  in  the  world,  generation  after 
generation. 

First  the  great  Father  of  the  art  comes  and  traces  out 
the  charcoal  sketch.  He  has  time  only  to  do  this  roughly 


The  Law  of  Progress  in  Art.  175 

and  then  die.  Another  generation  carries  the  work  on  by 
a  more  accurate  division  and  definition  of  the  boundaries 
of  future  labor.  A  third  begins  to  fill  these  boundaries. 
A  fourth  goes  over  the  whole  ground  again,  but  this  time 
in  detail.  A  fifth  traverses  it  all  over  again,  but  with  far 
minuter  detail ;  and  after  this  the  only  work  for  the  race 
is  this  continual  going  over  and  over  again  the  whole  field 
of  labor,  traced  out  and  partly  prepared  by  their  fore- 
fathers, but  every  time  with  more  accurate  discrimination 
in  the  detail. 

The  same  order  of  progress  is  visible  in  maritime  dis- 
covery, in  the  geography  of  the  land,  in  the  progress  of 
agriculture,  and  in  the  advance  of  every  science. 

In  maritime  discovery  you  will  find  this  law  of  prog- 
ress constant  from  the  voyage  of  Columbus  to  that  of  the 
last  New  York  clipper.  When  Columbus  crossed  the 
Atlantic,  the  first  rude  sketch  was  made.  To-day  thou- 
sands of  sea-captains  are  hard  at  work  on  the  details. 
The  credit  of  originating  this  great  system  of  observation 
is  due  to  the  United  States.  More  than  a  thousand  of  her 
navigators  "  were  engaged,"  says  Maury,  "  day  and  night, 
and  in  all  parts  of  the  ocean,  in  making  and  recording 
observations  according  to  a  uniform  plan,  and  in  furthering 
this  attempt  to  increase  our  knowledge  as  to  the  winds  and 
currents  of  the  sea,  and  other  phenomena  that  relate  to  its 
navigation  and  physical  geography."  And  now  all  the 
great  European  nations  co-operate  in  this  plan,  so  that  the 
ocean  is  covered  with  observers. 

In  the  geography  of  the  land  we  see  a  steady  tendency 
towards  accuracy  in  maps.  If  we  take  Great  Britain 
alone  as  an  example,  we  shall  observe  that  the  improve- 
ment from  the  earliest  known  maps  to  the  Ordnance  sur- 
vey is  not  in  extent  of  ground,  but  in  accuracy  of  detail. 
The  wonderful  advance  from  the  first  rude  sketch  of  the 
island  to  the  present  minute  survey  of  every  square  yard 
of  it  is  a  perfect  type  of  all  human  progress,  which  con- 
sists far  less  in  the  conquest  of  new  realms  —  for  this  is 
only  possible  in  the  very  earliest  stage  of  progress  —  than 
in  the  increasing  accuracy  with  which  realms  long  since 


176  The  Law  of  Progress  in  Art. 

conquered  by  our  forefathers  are  gradually  made  known 
to  us. 

In  the  progress  of  agriculture  we  find  another  equally 
instructive  example.  It  is  always  tending  to  a  culture 
less  and  less  superficial,  or  u  skimming,"  as  they  call  it  in 
America,  and  more  and  more  thorough.  The  progress  of 
agriculture  does  not  consist  in  the  enlargement  of  king- 
doms. The  new  generation  occupies  the  old  ground,  but 
carries  its  culture  to  a  more  detailed  perfection. 

In  the  advance  of  other  sciences  the  same  course  is 
followed.  First  comes  a  man  of  large  grasp,  who  lays 
down  the  rough  charcoal  outline  of  the  new  science  ;  then 
two  or  three  take  it  up  and  define  his  outline  better,  cor- 
recting it  where  faultiest.  Some  time  afterwards  you  will 
find  ten  thousand  laborers  filling  up  the  minutest  details 
of  the  discovery.  The  history  of  photography  from 
the  days  of  Niepce  to  the  present  time  is  the  most  strik- 
ing illustration  I  remember.  The  original  problem  has 
scarcely  been  enlarged,  but  how  minutely  has  it  been 
worked  out !  Human  anatomy  and  physiology  have  fol- 
lowed the  same  law.  The  first  problem  was  Man,  and 
the  problem  of  to-day  is  still  Man ;  but  within  this  narrow 
envelope,  our  skin,  how  much  has  been  explored  and 
learned,  how  much  yet  remains  for  future  investigation !  • 

In  the  history  of  our  art  of  Landscape  Painting,  Turner, 
our  Columbus,  did  not  supersede,  but  prepare  our  work. 
We  are,  in  relation  to  him,  as  observant  sea-captains  to  a 
great  maritime  discoverer.  We  go  over  the  same  waters, 
and  we  add  the  results  of  all  our  lives  of  observation  to 
his  great  hints  and  strivings  after  truth.  In  the  broad 
facts  he  saw  and  proved,  our  evidence  confirms  his,  but 
we  have  still  much  to  explore  in  which  his  charts  cannot 
help  us. 

What  is  known  as  the  pre-Raphaelite  movement  in 
painting  resembles  the  system  of  maritime  observations 
instituted  by  the  United  States.  The  sea  had  been  trav- 
ersed before  by  innumerable  navigators,  but  the  time  had 
at  last  arrived  when  a  more  accurate  and  perfect  knowl- 
edge of  it  was  felt  to  be  desirable.  It  was  all  to  be  ex- 


The  Law  of  Progress  in  Art.  177 

amined  over  again,  therefore,  on  a  system  infinitely  more 
exacting  and  more  severe  than  had  ever  been  applied  to  it 
before.  So  in  art,  though  Titian  had  painted  figures  and 
Turner  landscapes,  it  was  felt  by  our  younger  painters 
that  the  time  was  ripe  for  a  new  investigation  of  Nature's 
aspects,  both  in  man  and  the  earth ;  but  this  new  investi- 
gation must  be  conducted  with  a  resolute  adherence  to 
truth,  and  an  accurate  recording  (in  colors)  of  artistic 
observations.  So  we  are  going  over  the  whole  ground 
again  like  the  modern  sea-captains  with  their  charts  and 
note-books.  And  it  is  probable  that  we  shall  surpass  our 
predecessors  in  accuracy,  because  this  is  a  quality  which 
increases  with  the  progress  of  science.  But  as  to  our  sur- 
passing them  in  creative  genius,  that  is  quite  another 
matter,  depending  entirely  on  individual  capacity.  For 
the  painter  is  a  compound  of  poet  and  man  of  science,  and 
it  does  not  follow  that  the  poetic  half  of  him  will  develop 
itself  with  the  same  rapidity  as  the  scientific  half.  The 
probability  seems  even  to  lie  a  little  the  other  way  ;  it  is 
difficult  to  conceive  any  order  of  quite  accurate  landscape 
as  purely  poetical  as  the  fairest  Turnerian  dreams. 

I  thus  associate  artistic  progress  with  scientific,  because 
the  art  of  painting  is  strictly  a  compound  of  two  sciences, 
with  a  poetic  infusion  from  the  mind  of  the  artist.  The 
sciences  are,  first,  the  great  science  of  natural  aspects,  an 
infinite  ocean  of  discovery  which  ten  thousand  discoverers 
might  traverse  for  ever  without  exhausting ;  and,  secondly, 
the  technical  science  of  color.  These  sciences  follow  pre- 
cisely the  same  law  of  progress  as  all  other  sciences, 
though  the  element  of  human  feeling  may  remain  much 
the  same  in  different  generations  of  men.  Painting,  how- 
ever, develops  itself  very  unequally,  because  one  of  its 
component  sciences  may  be  quite  stationary,  whilst  another 
is  in  rapid  progress.  Thus  in  the  Renaissance  schools, 
generally,  the  science  of  the  human  figure  progressed  with 
astonishing  vigor,  whilst  the  science  of  landscape  gained 
little  ground.  The  science  of  color,  more  limited  and 
technical  than  that  of  natural  aspects,  reached  an  early 
and  splendid  maturity  in  Titian  ;  nevertheless  we  moderns 
12 


178  The.  Law  of  Progress  in  Art. 

have  added  to  it  several  valuable  processes,  unknown  to 
Titian,  yet  absolutely  necessary  for  the  accurate  rendering 
of  many  truths  we  desire  to  express,  which  did  not  come 
within  the  range  of  Titian's  art.  In  all  this,  painting  is 
exactly  on  the  same  footing  with  other  sciences ;  the  high- 
est element  in  it,  the  soul  of  its  master-works,  being 
always,  in  every  age,  a  matter  of  individual  genius.  The 
progressive  element  in  our  art  is  the  scientific  element, 
not  the  poetic ;  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  scien- 
tific portion  of  any  work  of  pictorial  art  is  a  very  large 
portion  of  it  —  is,  in  short,  the  whole  body  of  it ;  that 
the  feeling  of  the  artist  infuses  the  spiritual  element  only, 
and  has  nothing  to  do  with  matters  of  scientific  fact. 

We  are  neither  to  underrate  nor  to  exaggerate  the  im- 
portance of  the  science  of  natural  aspects,  but  we  are  to 
understand  that,  like  all  other  sciences,  it  is  essentially 
progressive,  and  we  are  to  accept  its  progress  as  a  matter 
of  course.  Artists  will  not  be  any  the  more  famous  for 
being  scientific,  but  they  are  compelled  to  become  scien- 
tific, because  they  have  embraced  a  profession  which  in- 
cludes a  natural  science,  just  as  the  profession  of  medicine 
does.  What  I  desire  to  enforce  is  the  great  truth  that 
within  the  Art  of  Painting  there  exists,  flourishes,  and 
advances,  a  noble  and  glorious  SCIENCE  —  a  science  as 
great  as  geology,  or  astronomy,  or  chemistry  —  a  science, 
like  them,  based  entirely  on  nature,  and  which  is  essen- 
tially and  irresistibly  progressive. 

Whether,  in  its  mighty  progress,  this  great  science  will 
forward  the  poetic  part  of  the  art,  I  know  not ;  but  it  will 
undoubtedly  furnish  continually  new  subjects  for  noble 
thought,  and  new  excitement  to  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
student.  Without  this  stimulus  of  progress,  the  art  would 
become  conventionalized  and  sink  into  a  manufacture,  as  it 
always  has  done  when  religious  authority  or  national  cus- 
toms have  arrested  its  scientific  advance.  I,  therefore, 
believe  that  the  very  greatest  of  all  dangers  to  our  art,  if 
not  the  only  danger  to  it,  is  the  stoppage  of  its  scientific 
development :  in  other  words,  its  abandonment  of  the  pur- 
suit of  truth.  So  long  as  all  Nature  is  open  to  art,  there 


The  Law  of  Progress  in  Art.  179 

surely  cannot  lack  the  necessary  excitement  for  the  poetic 
temperament  in  the  artist. 

And  as  I  perceive  now  around  me  all  the  signs  of  in- 
tense scientific  activity  in  contemporary  artists  ;  as  they 
ransack  all  the  realms  of  Nature  for  new  facts,  and. are 
incessantly  recording  on  canvas  truths  which  were  never 
before  recorded  for  the  human  race,  I  feel  unlimited  hope 
and  confidence  in  the  future.  The  apprehensions  of  the 
approaching  extinction  of  the  art  of  painting,  expressed  by 
Constable  and  others,  appear  to  me  just  as  reasonable  and 
well-founded  as  apprehensions  of  the  approaching  extinc- 
tion of  the  science  of  geography. 


180         Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting. 


IX. 

ANALYSIS   AND   SYNTHESIS  IN  PAINTING. 

TT7HEN  Mrs.  Beecher  Stowe  visited  England,  she 
*  *  found,  to  her  great  perplexity,  that  artists  and 
critics  could  no  more  agree  about  art  than  mankind  gen- 
erally can  about  religion.  To  a  thoughtful  and  sincere 
woman,  anxious  to  find  out  what  she  ought  to  believe  about 
every  thing  in  which  she  felt  an  interest,  the  discovery  of 
the  diversity  in  art  doctrine  which  exists  in  Europe  must 
have  been  quite  painful.  This  diversity  is  a  fact  full  of 
difficulty  and  discouragement  to  students,  whose  only  wish 
is  to  learn  to  think  rightly,  and  whose  degree  of  culture  in 
the  matter  of  art  is  not  yet  sufficient  to  give  them  an  inde- 
pendent standing-point  of  their  own.  You  pay  a  visit,  let 
us  suppose,  to  some  eminent  artist,  and  if  your  degree  of 
acquaintance  permits  it,  or  you  appear  to  desire  it,  he  will 
probably,  out  of  pure  kindness  to  you,  be  led  into  a  sort 
of  talk  more  or  less  positive  and  didactic,  and  will  enun- 
ciate some  strong  opinions,  and  lay  down  some  hard 
dogmas,  of  the  truth  of  which  a  long  experience  has  con- 
vinced him.  You  go  away,  congratulating  yourself  on 
having  acquired  so  much  wisdom,  and  if  you  never  talk 
with  any  other  painter  (or  critic),  you  may,  perhaps,  rest 
satisfied  with  what  you  have  heard.  But  if  you  know 
another  eminent  painter,  the  chances  are  that  he  will  utter 
another  set  of  doctrines ;  and  if  you  know  half  a  dozen, 
you  will  hear  so  many  opposite  opinions,  that  one  of  two 
results  will  be  produced  in  you :  either  hopeless,  helpless, 
life-long  bewilderment,  or  a  quiet  resolve  to  labor  to 
acquire  independent  opinions  of  your  own. 

Is  the  truth,  then,  nowhere  ?      Nay,  rather,  it  is  every- 
where.    For  as  animal  life  is  a  balanced  warfare  of  op- 


Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting.         181 

posite  forces,  so  the  life  of  art  is  a  fine  balance,  resulting 
from  the  perpetual  contention  of  warring  truths.  And 
each  of  these  truths  has  its  living  enunciator,  some  painter 
or  critic  who  insists  upon  it  without  ceasing ;  so  that  every 
truth  gets  uttered  ultimately  with  all  those  advantages  of 
vigorous  statement  which  the  hot  ardor  of  partisanship 
can  alone  achieve.  After  all,  it  is  but  a  difference  of  em- 
phasis here  and  emphasis  there.  A  man  will  always 
emphasize  those  truths  about  art  which  most  strongly 
recommend  themselves  to  his  own  peculiar  personal  tem- 
perament. This  comes  from  the  vastness  of  art,  and  the 
variety  of  human  organizations.  For  art  is  so  immense  a 
study,  that  no  one  man  ever  knew  the  whole  truth  about  it. 
Art  is  a  world  of  which  each  student  sees  and  knows  some 
fragment,  just  as  our  globe  is  known  in  little  bits  to  differ- 
ent members  of  the  human  race,  each  farm  being  known 
to  its  own  farmer,  each  house  to  its  own  inhabitant,  but  no 
one  man  knowing  all  the  farms  and  all  the  houses  on  the 
globe.  And  the  opinions  of  artists  and  critics  can  only 
be  profitable  to  us  if  we  consider  their  own  point  of  view, 
where  they  are  on  the  great  art  sphere,  and  what  they  can 
or  cannot  see  from  thence.  And  it  is  also  necessary  to 
take  into  account  their  personal  organization,  of  which, 
for  this  time,  we  have  only  space  to  consider  two  broad 
characteristics.  Some  men  see  synthetically,  others  ana- 
lytically. 

1.  The  analytic  habit  of  mind.  —  If  the  reader  has 
amongst  his  friends  men  of  much  intellectual  culture,  he 
will  probably  have  met  with  an  analyst.  They  are  won- 
derfully keen  investigators,  and  cunning  hunters-up  of 
particular  facts,  in  the  pursuit  of  which  they  pay  no  at- 
tention to  other  facts.  They  do  not  fish  with  a  net,  nor 
even  with  a  trident,  but  with  one  thin  sharp  spear.  It  is 
perhaps  on  this  account  that  analytic  people  often  seem  to 
us  at  once  so  intelligent  and  so  obtuse.  When  sufficiently 
excited  to  investigate  a  fact  they  penetrate  it  very  soon, 
but  without  that  excitement  every  fact  escapes  them. 
The  pure  analyst  is  like  a  man  always  looking  through 
a  microscope :  what  he  does  see  he  sees  with  supernatural 


182         Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting. 

clearness,  but  that  one  point  is  very  small  in  comparison  to 
all  that  is  going  on  around  him. 

2.  77ie  synthetic  habit  of  mind.  —  Synthesists  find  con- 
tinual  pleasure  in  observing  the  relations  of  things,  but 
from  their  largeness  of  range  they  constantly  miss  minute 
truths,  nor  do  they  ever  see  any  tiring  so  vividly  as  the 
analysts  see  that  which  they  have  analyzed.     Whenever 
they  have  to  sacrifice  either  a  truth  of  relation  or  a  truth 
of  detail,  they  always  sacrifice  the  detail.     The  synthetic 
breadth  of  view  seems  to  analysts  to  want  accuracy,  and 
to  be  something  very  like  a  general  bluntness.     The  syn- 
thesist, on  the  other  hand,  considers  analysts  to  be  clever 
children,  surprisingly  sharp  on  some  points,  and  ignorant 
of  every  thing  else.    The  analyst  esteems  his  own  quality, 
penetration ;  the  synthesist  also  esteems  his  own  quality, 
which  is  the  power  of  seeing  many  things  at  once,  with  all 
their  mutual  influences. 

3.  The  combination  of  the  two  minds  in  one.  —  It  some- 
times happens  that  a  synthesist  is  gifted  with  considerable 
powers  of  analysis,  or  the  converse.     When  the  two  pow- 
ers coexist  in  great  vigor  the  result  is,  in  painting,  that 
union  of  breadth  with  detail  which  is  so  precious  and  so 
rare.     An  artist  endowed  with  the  double  gift  analyzes  all 
the  pictorial  impressions  he  receives  by  resolving  them 
into  their  minutest  particles,  but  at  the  same  time  he  sees 
all  these  particles  in  their  just  relations,  which  the  mere 
analyst  does  not.     The  best  intellect  for  painting  is  one 
habitually  synthetic,  yet  capable  of  the  most  accurate  an- 
alysis by  an  effort  of  the  will.     When  the  analytic  tend- 
ency  predominates,  even    though   there   be  considerable 
power  of  synthesis,  the  work  is  not  so  good,  because  good 
wholes,  with  defective   parts,  are  always  more   valuable 
than   bad  wholes  even  though  their  parts  be  separately 
excellent. 

4.  Primary  artistic  analysis  of  natural  appearances.  — 
A  finished  picture  is  an  attempt  to  render  nature  as  nearly 
as  possible  in  full,  but  many  kinds  of  drawing  purposely 
leave  out  whole  classes  of  truths,  and  this,  in  itself,  is  a 
sort  of  rude  primary  analysis.      Every  natural  picture, 


Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting.         183 

whether  of  landscape  or  figures,  has  at  least  the  follow- 
ing elements  :  — 

Shapes  of  objects,  or  spaces  occupied  by  them  on  the 
field  of  vision. 

Their  local  color. 

Reflected  color. 

Light  and  dark  produced  by  local  color. 

Light  and  dark  produced  by  illumination. 

If  we  reject  color  we  still  have  the  various  other  truths 
represented  in  a  good  engraving;  but  we  may  go  much 
farther  in  rejection,  and  still  remain  intelligible.  We  may 
reject  the  light  and  dark  produced  by  local  color,  as  the 
old  masters  often  did  in  their  studies,  and  as  is  done  con- 
stantly, either  absolutely  or  partially,  in  most  of  our  pop- 
ular wood-cuts.  We  may  reject  even  the  light  and  dark 
produced  by  illumination,  and  merely  represent  our  objects 
by  outlines,  giving  the  boundaries  of  their  shapes.  The 
way  in  which  men  have  always  been  accustomed  to 
take  and  leave  the  truths  of  nature*  proves  a  certain 
power  of  analysis,  without  which  it  would  hardly  have 
occurred  to  any  one  to  translate  colored  objects  into 
white  and  black,  and  still  less  to  represent  them  by  mere 
outlines,  which  are  only  artificial  inclosures  of  spaces,  like 
fences  round  fields. 

5.  Artistic  analysis  of  light.  —  Light  presents  itself  to 
the  simple  and  unscientific,  but  very  observant,  artistic 
mind  in  two  different  characters,  as  direct  or  reflected  light. 
What  are  called  shadows,  being  merely  parts  of  the  sub- 
ject not  directly  illuminated,  are  lighted  by  complex  re- 
flected lights.  In  the  study  of  direct  light  the  artistic 
analyst  is  so  far  an  optician  as  to  perceive  that  surfaces  at 
right  angles  to  the  direct  rays  are  most  strongly  illumina- 
ted, and  that  as  the  angle  becomes  more  acute  the  degree 
of  illumination  diminishes ;  this  fact,  at  least  he  perceives, 
because  it  is  the  first  secret  of  successful  modelling.  But 

*  And  that  for  thousands  of  years.  The  Nineveh  marbles  give  evi- 
dence of  great  power  of  analysis,  and  so  does  much  Egyptian  work. 
Their  strong  abstraction  must  have  been  based  upon  some  kind  of  ana- 
lysis. 


184         Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting. 

it  is  in  the  study  of  reflected  lights  that  artistic  analysis 
is  most  actively  exercised.  They  come  from  sources  often 
so  unexpected  that  a  definite  mental  effort  is  needed  to  trace 
them  all  to  their  various  origins,  and  as  reflections  are  almost 
always  complex,  the  sort  of  effort  they  most  frequently  call 
for  is  analysis.  Again,  as  light  is  endlessly  reverberating, 
we  have  re-reflections  and  re-re-reflections,  which,  ming- 
ling together,  produce  appearances  that  all  artists  try  to 
account  for,  and  that  never  can  be  accounted  for  without 
the  most  subtle  and  delicate  analysis. 

6.  Artistic  analysis  of  forms.  —  The  study  of  anatomy 
is  the  most  definitely  analytic  movement  in  this  direction 
in  figure  painting.  Actual  dissection  is  evidently  analytic, 
but  so  also  is  mere  observation,  when  it  seeks  the  sepa- 
rate causes  of  attitudes  and  expressions  in  living  creatures, 
for  these  cannot  be  clearly  defined  without  reference  to 
the  facts  of  anatomy.  The  best  analyst  of  expression 
would  be  an  anatomist  accustomed  to  observe  living  faces 
under  all  the  varieties  of  human  emotion,  with  contin- 
ual reference  to  anatomy.  Sir  Charles  Bell  was  such 
an  observer,  and  his  treatise  on  the  Anatomy  of  Expres- 
sion is  an  interesting  example  of  the  analysis  of  art  and 
nature  in  connection  with  each  other.  In  landscape  we 
have  an  increasing  tendency  to  analysis,  as  shown  by  the 
special  study  of  plants,  even  to  dissection  of  flowers,  and 
the  careful  analysis  of  mountain  form  with  reference  to 
geological  structure.  Mountains  cannot  be  actually  dis- 
sected, but  by  means  of  geological  diagrams  we  arrive  at 
the  results  of  dissection.  This  kind  of  study  has  however 
the  peculiarity  that  it  teaches  the  actual  forms,  not  the 
apparent  ones,  and  therefore,  though  valuable  to  a  certain 
extent  for  the  definite  information  it  conveys,  would  be  of 
no  use  in  drawing  and  painting  unless  carried  on  in  con- 
junction with  that  other  kind  of  form-analysis  which  deals 
with  the  appearances  of  forms,  that  is,  the  shapes  of  the 
spaces  which  they  occupy  on  the  plane  of  vision,  and  their 
projection. 

The  science  of  perspective,  though  of  little  practical 
utility  in  painting,  was  a  resolute  attempt  to  analyze  the 


Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting.         185 

appearances  of  forms  in  a  rigidly  scientific  manner.  A 
more  profitable  kind  of  analysis  is  that  constantly  exer- 
cised by  the  eye  of  every  good  draughtsman  when  he 
looks  energetically  at  a  cluster  of  forms  and  decomposes 
them,  just  before  drawing  them.  In  such  moments  of 
hard  looking  a  good  figure  painter  resolves  a  model  into 
hundreds  of  variously  swelling  muscles  with  many  projec- 
tions of  bony  structure,  every  one  of  which,  though  never 
so  faintly  marked,  he  sees  and  seizes  in  its  own  place. 
But  I  cannot  help  thinking  (this  may  be  because  I  try  to 
paint  landscape  myself,  and  so  feel  the  difficulty  of  it)  that 
the  most  marvellous  efforts  in  this  kind  of  analysis  are 
made  by  the  best  of  our  modern  English  landscape  paint- 
ers. The  way  in  which  they  distinguish  the  thousands 
of  quite  different  objects,  every  one  of  which  has  to  be 
separately  examined  and  studied  before  a  modern  detailed 
landscape  can  possibly  be  painted,  is,  I  believe,  the  utter- 
most reach  of  analysis  which  can  be  pointed  to  in  the 
history  of  art.  For,  first,  there  is  the  analysis  of  the 
species  of  objects,  as  all  the  endless  species  of  trees,  plants, 
rocks,  &c.,  and  then  the  disentangling  of  the  innumerable 
crowds  of  them  which  cover  natural  scenery  in  infinite 
confusion.  When  you  have  analyzed  the  human  body 
thoroughly  you  are  master  of  figure  analysis,  but  when 
you  have  analyzed  an  oak-tree  thoroughly  you  are  not 
master  of  landscape  analysis ;  there  still  remain  ever  so 
many  other  species  of  trees,  and  then  the  mountains,  and 
the  rocks,  and  the  infinite  foreground  vegetation,  and  the 
forms  of  water  as  it  runs  in  torrents  and  rises  in  storm- 
waves,  and  the  forms  of  clo.uds,  —  fields  vast  enough,  each 
of  them,  for  the  labor  of  a  life ! 

7.  Artistic  analysis  of  color.  —  In  looking  at  any  natural 
picture,  whether  a  group  of  men  or  animals,  or  a  landscape, 
we  are  aware  of  certain  broad  masses  of  color,  but  also,  in 
exact  proportion  to  our  culture,  we  perceive  variety  within 
the  masses.  For  example,  the  popular  mind  of  the  Bur- 
gundy wine  district  has  long  perceived  the  splendid  golden 
color  of  the  vines  in  autumn,  so  that  the  French  depart- 
ment in  which  those  vineyards  are  situated  has  for  its  title 


186         Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting. 

that  noble  one  the  Cote  d'Or,  a  name  peculiarly  interesting 
as  a  national  recognition  of  the  glory  of  natural  color. 
Every  traveller,  not  color-blind,  who  in  the  month  of 
October  drives  along  the  broad  road  that  runs  past  the 
Clos  de  Vougeot  through  Nuits  to  Became,  sees  on  his 
right  hand  such  a  perpetual  blaze  of  golden  color  over 
the  vast  expanse  of  sloping  vineyards,  that  the  least  ob- 
servant cannot  help  talking  about  it  and  wondering  at  it. 
But  I  doubt  whether  anybody  who  has  not  tried  to  paint 
knows  of  how  many  elements  that  color  is  composed: 
what  subtle,  delicate  grays  there  are  in  it,  what  strange 
purples,  what  tender,  exquisite  greens,  what  spots  of  san- 
guine crimson,  what  grave  and  sober  sorts  of  russet,  what 
paleness  of  fading  yellow,  nearer  the  color  of  primroses 
than  of  gold.  The  impression  given  by  the  union  of  all 
these  colors  is  invariably  that  of  deep,  reddish,  very  rich 
gold ;  but  pray  how  can  a  painter  paint  so  composite  a 
color  without  first  decomposing  it  ?  On  finding  himself  in 
front  of  such  a  burning  expanse  of  vine-leaves,  of  whose 
countless  millions  not  two  are  colored  precisely  alike,  a 
painter's  first  thought  is  to  sift  out  and  analyze  the  ele- 
ments of  his  own  impression  in  order  that  he  may  himself 
afterwards,  by  the  re-union  of  the  same  elements,  repro- 
duce the  impression  on  the  minds  of  others.  For  the 
public  mind  is,  on  this  question,  more  critical  than  its 
habitual  simplicity  of  language  would  lead  us  to  suppose. 
A  gentleman  who  has  been  driving  through-  the  wine  dis- 
trict in  autumn  uses  such  simple,  emphatic  words  to  de- 
scribe his  impressions  that  you  would  imagine  a  little  pure 
cadmium  yellow  might  satisfy  him,  and  that  the  grays  and 
purples  were  superfluous.  Not  so.  He  would  at  once  feel 
that  the  cadmium  was  crude  (though  no  cruder  than  his 
own  word  "golden"),  and  to  satisfy  him  you  would  have 
to  paint  the  grays  and  purples,  to  accomplish  which  you 
must  first  analyze  them. 

It  is  probable  that  spectators  who  only  look  at  pictures, 
and  are  not  accustomed  to  the  conversation  of  artists,  may 
not  give  them  credit  for  much  of  this  sort  of  analysis,  but 
the  portfolios  of  many  landscape  painters  contain  sketches 


Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting.         187 

and  memoranda  on  which  letters,  or  words,  and  sometimes 
whole  sentences  are  written,  from  which  it  would  be  easy 
to  prove  that  their  authors  really  do  analyze  color  before 
painting  it.  The  following  paragraph,  copied  just  as  it 
stands  from  a  note  written  upon  a  study  of  my  own,  may 
be  taken  as  a  specimen  of  such  memoranda.  It  was  scrib- 
bled hastily  for  my  own  guidance,  and  may  be  accepted 
for  what  it  is  worth,  though  I  would  much  rather  quote 
from  the  private  memoranda  of  some  other  and  better 
painter  if  I  had  the  opportunity.  The  numbers  refer  to 
corresponding  numbers  on  the  study. 

"  The  causes  of  the  varieties  of  color  in  these  moun- 
tains are  as  follows :  First,  there  is  the  rocky  structure 
of  the  mountain  itself,  which  comes  out  bare  in  the  bosses, 
as,  for  instance,  continually  in  Ben  Vorich  (No.  1),  which 
is  the  best  example  of  ruggedness  at  Loch  Awe.  This 
bare  rock  gives  a  valuable  cool  gray  tint,  but  grass  grows 
where  the  soil  holds,  and  this  grass,  as  the  ground  is  poor, 
reaches  no  more  brilliant  color  than  a  warm  olive  green. 
The  most  precious  result  of  this  conformation  is  tliat 
wherever  water  runs  in  wet  weather  the  grass  is  much 
greener,  and  this  produces  the  appearance  of  an  infinite 
number  of  winding  lines  of  green,  running  in  and  out 
amongst  the  rocks  in  the  most  wayward  manner,  but  in 
reality  always  subject  to  the  laws  by  which  water  flows. 
And  it  is  these  green  stream-marks  which  indicate,  more 
than  any  thing  else  except  shadow,  the  true  mountain 
form.  Although  visibly  enough  defined,  they  are  always 
gradated  at  their  edges  into  the  olive-green  around,  because 
the  water  does  not  always  flow  down  them  in  the  same 
quantity,  and  only  occasional  floods  refresh  the  edges, 
whereas  every  shower  nourishes  the  roots  in  the  middle, 
which  therefore  produce  the  greenest  grass.  The  trees 
at  present  (May)  are  of  a  dark  olive  green,  but  the  places 
where  the  wood  has  been  cut  are  reddish.  In  No  2  there 
is  little  variety  of  color  just  now,  the  principal  elements 
of  it  being  the  usual  olive  grass  and  the  rock  structure 
under  it.  The  exposed  ground  to  the  right  on  this  moun- 
tain is  redder,  though  still  very  gray.  No.  3  has  a  very 


188         Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting. 

slender  covering  of  grass,  slashed  all  over  with  reddish 
openings.  In  No.  4,  just  under  the  figure,  or  a  little  to 
the  right  of  it,  the  openings  are  redder  than  anywhere 
else.  In  No.  5  the  bare  rock  scarcely  appears  at  all,  but 
there  is  a  great  intricacy  of  mosaic  on  account  of  the  grass 
being  patched  with  heather.  In  No.  6  the  bare  rock  is 
nowhere  visible,  but  there  is  the  richest  mosaic  of  grass 
and  heather.  As  to  the  middle  distance,  beginning  with 
the  promontory,  some  trees  are  now  in  their  richest  spring 
green,  whilst  the  evergreens  show  dark  amongst  them,  and 
therefore  produce  a  telling  contrast.  The  rest  of  the 
middle  distance  is  a  mosaic  of  purple  and  green,  neither 
intense  now."  But  all  this,  I  fear,  is  becoming  tiresome, 
and  so  let  us  get  to  the  concluding  sentence,  which  certainly 
seems  to  have  been  written  by  somebody  who  was  trying 
very  hard  to  analyze  (or  separate  the  elements  of )  the 
natural  subject,  and  found  himself  baffled  by  nature's  in- 
extricable entanglement.  "  Objects  come  against  each  other 
continually  where  there  is  not  contrast  enough,  either  of  color 
or  light,  to  separate  them,  and  the  consequence  is  an  inex- 
tricable confusion;  this  is  especially  noticeable  in  the  leaf- 
less tree  to  the  right,  which  is  quite  confused  with  the 
leafy  one  and  the  mountain  background." 

Here  is  only  the  very  rudest  analysis.  Grass  is  greener 
in  one  place  than  in  another  because  it  is  better  watered, 
hills  are  slashed  with  reddish  openings  in  the  grassy  turf, 
or  covered  with  a  rich  mosaic  of  purple  and  green.  There 
is  another  kind  of  color  analysis  incomparably  more  deli- 
cate :  that  of  a  colorist  actually  working  in  color,  for  then, 
at  every  instant,  he  is  analyzing  hues  which  no  words  can 
describe,  no  writing  decompose.  A  colorist  must  be  an 
analyst  of  color  —  how  far  consciously  so  or  not  it  may  be 
difficult  to  determine,  some  colorists  thinking  and  looking 
laboriously  before  they  paint,  others  working  (as  it  would 
seem)  by  happy  instinct.  But  out  of  analysis,  in  every 
case,  comes  the  astounding  sorcery  of  making  things  look 
quite  right  by  means  that  seem  so  arbitrary,  and  odd,  and 
wrong.  If  you  go  to  any  great  work  in  color,  and  stare 
hard  into  it,  at  a  distance  of  six  inches,  you  will  see  queer 


Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting.         189 

dots  and  streaks  of  color  quite  unlike  what  lies  on  that 
part  of  the  natural  subject,  but  which  tell  truly  at  the 
right  distance,  because  they  are  concentrations  of  color 
elements  gathered  by  the  analysis  of  surrounding  fields  of 
color.  They  are  true  essences,  obtained  by  analysis.* 

8.  Critical  analysis  of  compositions.  —  Art-critics  some- 
times analyze  pictorial  compositions  with  a  view  to  ascer- 
tain the  laws  of  composition.  True  composers,  I  imagine, 
rarely,  if  ever,  analyze  their  own  work  in  this  way,  and 
the  main  use  of  such  analysis  is  that  it  makes  u$  admire 
good  compositions  more  and  enjoy  them  better.  The  sort 
of  analysis  with  which  critics  often  amuse  themselves  may 
be  best  understood  by  an  example  ;  and  in  order  to  be  quite 
sure  that  the  composition  selected  for  examination  is  acces- 
sible to  all  readers  of  this  Review,  I  will  choose  the  draw- 
ing by  Nicholas  Poussin,  a  photograph  of  which  was  given 
in  the  second  number. 

It  is  a  building  of  many  forms,  apparently  acting  in 
perfect  freedom,  into  one  structure  of  a  character  so  pecu- 
liarly artificial  that  composition  of  this  perfect  kind  is 
never  found  in  any  natural  group.  Nature  gives  abun- 
dant hints  and  suggestions,  but  never  quite  composes,  in 
our  human  sense  ;  just  as  the  murmurs  of  waves  and  the 
whistling  of  the  wind  may  suggest  musical  ideas,  but 
never  play  tunes.  In  this  drawing  the  structural  arrange- 
ment of  the  group  is  obvious  at  a  glance.  The  centre  is 
the  head  of  Pan's  image.  A  canopy  is  formed  over  it, 
not  only  by  the  trees,  but  by  an  imaginary  arch  begun 
at  one  side  by  the  arm  and  trumpet  of  a  faun,  and  at  the 
other  by  the  arm  and  timbrel  of  a  nymph.  See  how 

*  There  is  a  curious  resemblance  between  the  faculty  of  analysis  in 
seeing  color  and  in  tasting  food.  Many  of  us  can  know  that  a  dish  is  badly 
cooked  without  being  able  to  say  why.  Any  practised  analyst  of  flavors, 
a  good  cook,  or  an  epicure,  can  somehow  separate  the  most  composite 
flavor  into  all  its  elements,  and  so  finds  out  at  once  which  element  is 
superabundant  and  which  deficient.  The  faculty  of  musical  analysis  is 
of  the  same  kind.  A  good  musical  critic  not  only  hears  the  whole  of  a 
chorus,  but  he  hears  all  the  parts  separately,  as  well  as  simultaneously. 
And  it  seems  probable  that  a  composer,  when  writing  an  opera,  hears  in 
his  imagination  combinations  of  sound,  which  he  has  to  analyze  before 
making  out  his  score. 


190         Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting. 

curiously  the  right  arm  of  the  faun  continues  the  curve  of 
the  arch,  and  as  the  hand  did  not  go  far  enough  down  it 
holds  a  piece  of  drapery  which  carries  the  line  almost  to 
the  thigh  of  the  kneeling  faun,  which  really  bears,  on  that 
side,  the  weight  of  the  arch.  On  the  right  the  arch  is 
continued  by  three  flying  pieces  of  drapery,  and  the  body 
and  leg  of  the  boy,  his  foot  in  the  right-hand  corner  being 
the  termination  of  the  arch  on  that  side.  Under  this  im- 
aginary arch  is  another  easily  traceable,  one  of  which  the 
head  of  Pan's  image  is  the  keystone.  This  second  or 
inner  arch  is  constructed  on  the  right  of  the  outspread 
arms  and  head  of  the  nymph  taking  the  flowers,  the  head 
of  the  child  who  carries  the  flower-basket,  and  the  head, 
body,  and  left  leg  of  the  boy  who  is  helping  the  drinking 
satyr.  On  the  left,  the  same  arch  runs  from  the  right 
knee  of  the  kneeling  faun  through  his  body  and  head  to 
the  head  of  the  woman  on  the  goat,  then  through  the  faun's 
head  at  her  side  to  the  left  hand  of  the  nymph  carrying 
the  faun,  whence  the  ascent  to  Pan's  head  is  very  slight. 
The  reader  will  observe  how  curiously  all  the  other  forms 
support  this  arch,  or  correspond  to  it.  The  arm  of  the 
kneeling  faun,  the  woman's  outstretched  arm,  the  arm  of 
the  faun  at  her  side,  are  built  together  compactly.  And 
observe  that  the  faun  on  the  nymph's  shoulder  keeps  its 
right  hind-leg  lower  for  the  same  reason.  To  complete 
the  composition,  there  are  festoons  of  forms  under  Pan  as 
well  as  arches  above  him.  The  most  important  festoon 
begins  on  the  left  with  the  inclined  body  and  the  extended 
right  leg  of  the  nymph  on  the  goat.  It  reaches  the  ground 
in  the  thigh  of  the  fallen  satyr,  and  rises  again  through 
his  shoulder  to  the  body  of  the  stooping  faun.  See  how 
the  three  heads  of  the  stooping  faun,  the  drunken  satyr, 
and  the  boy,  carry  the  festoon  up  regularly  on  the  right. 
There  is  also  a  smaller  festoon  nearer  Pan  descending 
from  the  uplifted  hand  of  the  nymph  who  carries  the  faun, 
through  her  right  hand,  and  along  the  faun's  head,  to  the 
shoulder  of  the  nymph  who  has  pushed  down  the  satyr, 
thence  it  rises  through  her  head  to  the  drapery  of  the 
nymph  taking  flowers,  and:  through  her  head  to  the  timbrel. 


Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting.         191 

A  lower  festoon  is  completed  by  the  flower-basket  thrown 
down  in  the  foreground,  to  which  the  foot  of  the  riding 
nymph  points,  and  the  trees  in  the  background  are  strength- 
ening pillars  within  the  larger  or  imaginary  arch.  The 
composition  may  be  summarily  described  as  a  central 
image  of  Pan  surrounded  by  arches  and  festoons  of  com- 
bined forms.  It  is  a  real  structure,  not  a  fortuitous 
agglomeration.  Much  more  might  be  said  of  it  in  this 
way,  for  the  smallest  details  quite  curiously  corroborate 
what  has  been  already  advanced,  but  this  analysis  is  long 
enough  to  be  read  with  patience. 

9.  Artistic  analysis  in  technical  methods. —  Painters 
with  a  strong  analytic  tendency  often  try  to  separate  the 
work  of  painting  as  much  as  possible,  because  such  intel- 
lects find  difficulties  conquerable  in  succession  which,  to 
them,  are  insuperable  when  united.  The  excessive  tech- 
nical difficulty  of  painting  consists  in  this,  that  with  one 
and  the  same  touch  the  artist  has  to  give  true  form  and 
true  color  —  it  is  like  a  game  at  billiards  where  you  have 
to  hit  two  balls  with  one  stroke,  with  the  difference  that 
in  painting  misses  are  injurious  to  the  beauty  of  the  work 
and  are  hard  to  retrieve.  The  finest  execution  is  there- 
fore always  marked  by  great  power  of  synthesis,  of  which 
more  presently;  but  it  is  safer  for  arti&ts  who  are  not 
endowed  with  that  power  to  divide  the  difficulties  as  if 
they  were  hostile  armies,  and  attack  them  separately. 
Such  painters  often  work  in  a  sort  of  mosaic  on  a  care- 
fully prepared  design  ;  and  as  working  with  mixed  tints 
is  a  kind  of  synthesis,  they  sometimes  carry  the  analytic 
principle  so  far  as  to  resolve  the  tints  into  their  compo- 
nents, and  paint  with  small  touches  of  quite  pure  color. 
The  practical  analysis  of  natural  tints  has  never,  I  believe, 
been  carried  farther  than  by  Whaite  and  Alfred  Hunt, 
who  succeed  in  rendering  them  with  remarkable  brilliance 
on  the  principle  of  resolving  compound  tints  and  repre- 
senting them  by  the  juxtaposition,  or  superposition,  of  the 
component  colors.  It  is  right  to  add  that  conquering 
difficulties  by  dividing  them  was  not  the  only  object  of 
these  artists.  They  perceived  that  the  brilliance  of  pig- 


192         Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting. 

merits  was  always  dulled  by  mixture,  and  that  the  too 
common  modern  practice  of  unlimited  intermixture  led  to 
ruinous  results.  To  avoid  this  they  adopted  the  plan  of 
working  in  pure  colors  on  a  white  ground,  and,  as  they 
liked  form,  they  chose  to  work  on  a  careful  design.  But 
the  analytic  tendency  in  execution  is  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  these  artists  and  their  school.  We  observe  it  in 
much  modern  English  work.  Holman  Hunt's  practicq  is 
analytic,  indeed  the  pre-Raphaelite  way  of  work  is  natu- 
rally analytic,  because  pre-Raphaelitism  has,  from  the 
beginning,  been  an  analytic  movement,  and  may  be  best 
defined  as  a  new  analysis  of  nature.  When  pictures  are 
painted  on  carefnl  designs  and  finished  part  by  part,  it  is 
analytic  execution.  When  they  are  first  blocked  out 
roughly  in  formless  masses  and  brought  forward  all  at 
once  into  drawing  and  detail,  it  is  synthetic  execution. 
Of  course  in  the  first  instance  there  must  coexist  consid- 
erable intellectual  power  of  synthesis,  and,  in  the  second, 
of  analysis,  but  as  regards  execution  the  distinction  is 
real. 

Pictures  painted  analytically  are  objects  of  much  con- 
tempt to  critics  who  admire  exclusively  the  opposite  prin- 
ciple of  work.  They  deny  to  such  art  the  title  of 
"painting"  altogether,  and  call  it  "colored  drawing." 
Having  no  prejudice  against  either  process  I  may  be 
trusted,  so  far,  in  speaking  of  their  relative  merits  and 
defects.  Analytic  work  is  generally  more  carefully  drawn 
and  more  pure  and  bright  in  color ;  synthetic  work  is 
generally  truer  in  effect,  freer  in  handling,  and  more  mas- 
terly in  impasto.  Whaite  is  an  excellent  example  of  the 
former,  and  Lambinet  of  the  latter. 

10.  Analytic  systems  of  art  study.  —  The  principle  of 
analysis  may  be  carried  very  far  in  art  education.  The 
pupil  may  have  the  difficulties  so  ingeniously  divided  for 
him  as  rarely  to  present  more  than  one  at  a  time  for  him 
to  contend  against.  The  good  of  this  system  is  that  by 
separating  the  difficulties  they  are  more  thoroughly  under- 
stood and  more  easily  conquered ;  the  evil  of  it,  that  it  in 
no  way  represents  the  struggles  of  the  mature  career  of 


Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting.         193 

an  artist  whose  supreme  embarrassment  is  not  the  num- 
ber of  difficulties,  but  the  fact  of  their  intimate  interunion. 
The  pupil  who  has  always  been  breaking  the  sticks  one 
by  one  is  likely  to  experience  severe  disappointment  when 
he  discovers  that  he  cannot  break  the  faggot. 

Advocates  for  the  analytic  system  of  art  education  gen- 
erally attach  such  importance  to  drawing,  that  they  would 
have  painting  postponed  until  the  pupil  has  acquired  the 
power  of  accurate  design.  The  following  sketch  of  an 
analytic  system  of  education  in  landscape  will  show  how 
far  the  principle  may  be  carried.  As  to  the  policy  of 
adopting  any  such  system  in  practice,  it  would  be  wise 
to  do  so  only  on  condition  of  frequently  laying  it  aside 
for  a  completely  synthetic  way  of  work.  For  example, 
a  pupil  who  should  work  alternately  six  months  with  a 
severe  analyst  and  six  with  a  synthesist  would  escape  the 
dangers  peculiar  to  each  method  when  followed  exclu- 
sively. 

1.  Study  of  simple  objects  in  black  and  white  with  the 
pen,  like  Durer's  wood-cuts,  not  recognizing  local  color, 
and  only  using  shading  to  help  the  expression  of  form. 
Common  daylight  permitted  but  no  sunshine.     Great  at- 
tention directed  to  firmness  and  accuracy  of  line. 

2.  Study  in    black    and  white,  aiming    chiefly  at    the 
translation  of  local  color.     No  sunshine  admitted.     Form 
not  so  severely  required  as  before. 

3.  Studies  of  the    same  objects  in  sunshine.     In  the 
attempt  to  render  light,  form  and  local  color  not  severely 
required  from  the  student.     This  of  course  involves  the 
careful  study  of  cast  shadows  and  reflected  lights. 

4.  Analytic  study  of  many  classes  of  natural  objects  by 
the  foregoing  methods.     Leaves,  flowers,  grasses,  mosses, 
branches,  twigs,  trunks,  stones,  rocks  (especially  such  por- 
tions of  them  as  best  show  their  structure),  parts  of  moun- 
tains, bits  of  foreground,  and  so  on.     All  the  principal 
species  of  trees,  rocks,  &c.,  to  be  studied  separately. 

5.  Studies   admitting    color   but   no   sunshine.     These 
studies  being  entirely  for  local  color  every  thing  else  is,  for 
the  time,  treated  as  of  minor  importance.     Repetitions  of 


194         Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting. 

the  analytic  study  of  natural  objects,  this  time  with  their 
local  color,  and  for  it  peculiarly.* 

6.  Studies  for  colored  sunshine.  New  analysis  of  nat- 
ural objects  in  sunshine.  Truth  of  sunlight  and  sun-color 
all  that  is  aimed  at. 

11.  Partial  or  irregular  analysis.  —  It  is  only  in  very 
recent  times  that  the  doctrine  that  every  thing  is  worthy  of 
study  has  been  admitted  by  artists,  and  even  yet  we  find 
figure  painters  who  will  not  take  the  trouble  to  analyze 
landscape  seriously  and  therefore  cannot  paint  it  at  all. 
Ingres  is  a  notable  example  of  partial  analysis  ;  he  has 
analyzed  the  human  figure,  and  can  draw  it 'well,  but  he 
cannot  draw  a  stick  or  a  stone,  far  less  a  wave  of  the  sea 
or  the  ripple  of  a  brook.  But  if  the  reader  cares  to  seek 
for  examples  of  partial  analysis  he  will  find  them  abund- 
antly in  the  Exhibitions.  The  best  painting  requires  an 
insight  so  universal  that  nothing  can  escape  it,  and  as  this 
sort  of  insight  is  rare,  we  find  that  one  painter  analyzes 
one  thing,  and  another  another,  but  that  nearly  all  of  them 
miss  some  orders  of  truths.  Partial  analysis  is  indeed 
only  another  name  for  imperfect  information,  which  cannot 
be  hidden  in  painting,  as  it  may  in  literature,  by  artfully 
passing  one's  ignorances  in  a  parenthesis  and  loudly  en- 
larging upon  the  little  we  know.  The  empty  space  in  the 
painter's  brain  is  represented  by  a  corresponding  empti- 
ness in  his  pictures,  and  the  critic  will  often  find  evidences 
of  partial  or  irregular  analysis. 

The  difference  in  general  power  of  analysis  between  one 
man  and  another  is  also  very  great.  A  common  painter 
contemplating  nature  is  like  a  rustic  staring  at  the  stars  ; 
he  can  analyze  the  more  obvious  constellations,  but  behind 
them  lie  dim  fields  of  cloudy  light  which  he  cannot  re- 
solve ;  and  the  greatest  painters  are  like  astronomers  with 
telescopes,  analyzing  much,  and  guessing  at  more,  yet  still 
always  ultimately  finding  the  last  infinite  and  impenetrable 
mystery  of  things. 

*  The  best  time  for  such  study  as  this  is  in  gloomy  weather,  after,  or 
during  rain.  The  local  colors  are  then  at  their  fullest,  and  still  imitable. 


Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting.         195 

12.  Pernicious  excess  in  analysis.  —  When  painters  see 
detail  very  clearly,  they  are  often  fatally  led  into  morbid 
or  excessive  analysis.     In  this  state  the  artist  perceives 
detail  with  surprising  minuteness,  and  is,  as  it  were,  fasci- 
nated and  blinded  by  it,  than  which  nothing  can  be  more 
dangerous  to  any  painter,  for  then  he  cannot  see  one  nat- 
ural picture,  nor  even  a  part  of  it,  but  only  the  particles 
of  parts. 

We  see  the  same  tendency  at  work  in  other  things. 
Grammar  is  an  analysis  of  language,  and  may  be  of  some 
use  in  its  way,  provided  we  do  not  weary  ourselves  with 
it.  But  excessive  grammar  is  over  analysis,  and  gramma- 
rians are  often  rendered  insensible  to  the  artistic  beauty 
of  great  literary  works  by  their  petty  grammatical  habits. 
They  will  interrupt  you  in  the  finest  passages  to  expatiate 
on  the  force  of  a  particle.  As  there  are  two  ways  of  read- 
ing Homer,  that  of  the  poet  and  that  of  the  philologist,  so 
also  there  are  two  ways  of  reading  nature,  —  the  artist's 
and  the  analyst's. 

13.  Premature   synthesis;  —  Synthesis,    which    is     at- 
tempted before  a  sufficient  power  of  analysis  has    been 
acquired  and  exercised.     The  color  work  of  amateurs,  who 
are  so  situated  as  to  be  able  to  devote  little  time  to  the 
practice  of  art,  is  nearly  always  rendered  nugatory  by 
premature  synthesis.     So  also,  very  frequently,  is  that  of 
artists  by  profession  who  are  obliged  to  expose  pictures 
for  sale  without  having  given  sufficient  time  to  analysis  in 
the  way  of  study. 

14.  Synthesis  in  light.  —  The  lightness  and  darkness  of 
each  object,  being  relative,  must  be  translated  syntheti- 
cally, that  is,  with  continual  reference  to  the  rest  of  the 
picture.     When  this  is  not  done,  the  parts  may  be  sepa- 
rately true,  yet  false  when  considered  with  reference  to  the 
whole.     The  necessity  for  synthetic  and  artificial  systems 
of  light  in  pictorial  art  results  from  the  difference  in  scale 
of  natural  and  pictorial  light,  for,  if  they  were  the  same,  a 
part  truly  copied  in  its  light  and  dark  would  also  be  true 
relatively  to  the  whole,  which  it  cannot  be  so  long  as  our 
scale  is  shorter  than  Nature's. 


196         Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting. 

There  is  also,  in  all  good  pictorial  art,  a  synthetic  and 
artificial  arrangement  of  light.  It  very  seldom  occurs  that 
a  natural  scene  is  illuminated  in  a  way  precisely  fitted  to 
the  purposes  of  art,  because  the  first  want  of  human  art  is 
unity,  and  Nature,  in  those  fragments  of  her  creation 
which  we  make  into  artistic  wholes,  seldom  cares  to 
achieve  unity.  The  real  unities  of  Nature  are  so  large  as 
to  be  beyond  the  grasp  of  painting.  Her  landscapes  are 
fragments,  but  the  globe  is  a  rounded  whole  ;  her  men 
and  women  are  imperfect  details,  but  the  human  race  is  a 
balanced  being.  Art  takes  tiny  fragments  of  Nature's 
great  wholes  and  makes  little  wholes  of  them.  Nature's 
illumination  is  generally  scattered  —  wants  concentration. 
Good  artists  contrive,  without  violating  the  laws  of  pos- 
sible phenomena,  to  light  their  pictures  in  such  a.  manner 
that  the  light,  instead  of  shattering  the  composition  into 
fragments,  shall  bind  and  bring  together  all  its  chiefest 
elements. 

15.  Synthesis  in  color. —  Color  requires  higher  power 
of  synthesis  than  any  thing  else  in  art,  for  although  analy- 
sis is  of  use  in  studying  natural  color,  it  does  not  of  itself 
enable  us  to  make  color  of  our  own ;  because,  whether  you 
will  or  not,  in  painting  on  any  one  part  of  your  picture 
you  are  really  painting  upon,  that  is,  changing  the   color 
of,  the  whole  canvas    at    once,  and    unless  you    do    this 
always  synthetically  you  will  never  succeed.     Every  new 
touch  changes  all  the  touches  already  laid,  —  if  warmer  it 
cools  them,  if  cooler  it  warms  them,  if  brighter  it  dulls 
them,  if  duller    it   lends    them    brightness.     This  is    so 
curiously  true  that  visitors    to    the    studios    of    painters 
constantly  believe  that  the  artist  has  been  working  on  por- 
tions of  his  picture  which  he  has  never  touched  since  their 
previous  visits.     And  they  are  right. 

16.  Synthesis  inform.  —  Commonly  called  composition. 
The  synthetic  arrangement  of  forms  is  strikingly  apparent 
in  all  first-rate  design,  and  it  is  one  of  the  eternal  distinc- 
tions which  separate  good  design  from  photography.     In 
photography  the  arrangement  of  forms  can  never  be  syn- 
thetic.    You  may  group  your   models  and   materials  as 


Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting.         197 

artfully  as  you  like,  there  will  be  no  synthesis.  So  in 
living  groups  of  costumed  models,  called  tableaux  vivants, 
which  people  sometimes  amuse  themselves  by  getting  up, 
it  is  not  possible,  by  any  amount  of  care  in  arrangement, 
ever  to  obtain  artistic  synthesis.  Why  ? 

Because  synthesis  in  form  does  not  merely  arrange 
given  forms,  but  runs  into,  and  modifies,  every  line  in  the 
forms  themselves.  A  great  inventive  artist  never  in  a 
picture  draws  any  thing  exactly  as  it  is,  but  compels  it  into 
such  shapes  as  he  wants  in  that  place,  having  reference  all 
the  time  to  all  the  other  shapes  either  already  put,  or  to 
be  put,  in  all  the  other  parts  of  the  picture.  Hence  the 
imitation  of  artistic  composition  by  grouping  things  for 
the  photographer,  or  by  tableaux  vivants,  is  a  manifest 
absurdity. 

Something  of  the  mutual  effect  of  colors  is  observable 
in  the  relations  of  forms.  They  modify  each  other  to  a 
considerable  extent  by  contrast ;  a  stiff  line  seems  doubly 
stiff  beside  a  flowing  one,  and  a  slight  curve  is  much  more 
perceptible  when  you  set  it  beside  a  straight  line.  Good 
composers  avail  themselves  of  this  property  with  great 
skill,  and  their  lightest  grace  and  sturdiest  strength  are 
due  to  it. 

17.  Synthetic  systems  of  art  study.  —  A  difference  of 
opinion  exists  amongst  painters  as  to  whether  young 
artists  ought  to  begin  to  paint  before  they  have  mastered 
drawing,  or  only  take  up  the  palette  when  already  accom- 
plished draughtsmen.  This  difference  may  be  stated  as, 
on  the  one  hand,  an  advocacy  of  the  analytic  system  of 
art  education,  and,  on  the  other,  of  the  synthetic.  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds  and  Mr.  Leslie  are  amongst  the  synthe- 
sists  ;  and  I  know  a  good  painter,  who,  on  finding  that  a 
young  friend  of  his  was  drawing  assiduously  to  improve 
his  forms,  recommended  him  most  urgently  not  to  draw  in 
black  and  white,  but  rather  try  to  improve  his  drawing 
gradually  whilst  painting ;  in  other  words,  to  study  syn- 
thetically. 

There  is  much  truth  in  this  view,  and  much  importance 
is  to  be  attached  to  the  fact  that  since  painting  is,  after  all, 


198         Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting. 

work  emphatically  synthetic  (being  the  union  of  many 
forms  and  colors  and  lights  and  darks  into  artistic  wholes), 
it  must  be  right  to  get  the  student  as  early  as  possible  into 
the  habit  of  synthesis.  But  painting  is  a  synthesis  of 
what?  Of  innumerable  truths.  And  it  is  found,  in  prac- 
tice, that  the  human  faculties  are  not  large  enough  to 
learn  all  these  truths  at  once. 

The  most  rational  conclusion  appears  to  be  that  the 
right  principle  of  early  study  is  analysis ;  but  that  between 
the  period  of  studentship  and  that  of  mastery  there  exists 
an  interval,  in  many  cases  long  and  laborious^  when  the 
artist  is  painfully  acquiring  the  power  of  synthesis,  that  is, 
the  power  of  expressing  all  at  once,  and  harmoniously,  the 
many  different  facts  which  he  is  already  able  to  express 
separately. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  reflections  which  naturally  sug- 
gest themselves,  in  one  shape  or  other,  to  every  painter 
who  thinks  about  his  art.  But  it  is  seldom  that  painters 
are  willing  to  recognize  the  full  value  of  both  the  two 
great  mental  operations  which  govern  the  art  of  painting. 
Some  urge  the  necessity  of  analysis  :  the  separation  of  aim 
in  study,  the  resolution  of  all  things  into  their  component 
parts,  and  the  conscious  investigation  of  causes.  Others, 
and  these  generally  the  greater  men,  say  that  all  analysis 
is  valueless  except  as  a  part,  and  by  no  means  the  most 
difficult  part,  of  study,  that  for  performance  it  goes  a  very 
little  way  ;  and  these  latter  have  such  slight  respect  for 
the  power  of  analysis,  that  they  neither  value  it  much  in 
themselves  nor  honor  it  in  their  fellow-artists.  They  as- 
sert, too,  that  a  strong  healthy  eye,  which  sees  things  truly 
as  they  appear,  and  a  retentive  memory,  which  holds 
what  the  eye  has  seen,  are  better  possessions  for  a  painter 
than  the  power  of  minute  analysis.  And  they  are  cer- 
tainly right  so  far,  that  analysis  becomes  a  habit,  and 
always  has  a  tendency  to  attach  itself  to  some  facts  to  the 
neglect  of  others,  so  that  a  skilled  analyst  sees  a  few 
things  with  supernatural  clearness  and  is  blind  to  every- 
thing which  he  has  not  analyzed.  On  the  other  hand,  a 
true  synthesis!  sees  quite  impartially,  and  this  impartiality 


Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting.         199 

makes  him  largely  receptive.  The  analyst  penetrates  and 
resolves  many  things,  but  a  perfect  synthesist  would  re- 
ceive all  things. 

The  best  state  for  a  painter  would,  no  doubt,  be  to  see 
things  all  at  once,  in  their  right  pictorial  relations,  and 
then  to  be  able  to  keep  the  natural  group  or  scene  in  his 
memory  with  perfect  distinctness,  and  look  at  it,  as  one 
looks  at  a  real  scene,  but  without  any  effort  of  analysis, 
simply  seeing  and  copying  the  complete  picture  in  the 
mind.  Painters  are  generally  strong  as  they  approach  to 
this  state,  -and  weak  as  they  recede  from  it ;  the  weakest 
state  of  all  being  when  the  artist  finds  himself  compelled 
to  think  about  what  he  is  doing,  and  to  analyze  nature 
with  full  consciousness  of  his  occupation.  Nevertheless, 
simplicity  of  sight  and  strength  of  memory  are  so  rare, 
that  most  painters  are  wise  in  making  up  for  the  defi- 
ciency of  these,  so  far  as  they  are  able,  by  scientific  accu- 
racy of  analysis  and  laborious  gathering  of  registered 
observations.  Yet,  though  it  may  be  permitted  to  accu- 
mulate materials  by  such  processes  of  separation,  we  may 
rest  assured  of  this,  that  in  all  fine  art,  the  supreme  Lord 
of  Construction,  who,  if  present,  makes  precious  the  most 
meagre  materials,  and  in  whose  absence  all  that  knowledge 
can  contribute  and  wealth  procure  will  be  lavished  vainly, 
is  that  strong  ruler  Synthesis,  whom  Analysis  may  effec- 
tually serve,  but  can  never  either  replace  or  represent. 


200        The  Reaction  from  Pre-Raphaelitism. 


X. 

THE  REACTION  FROM  PRE-RAPHAELITISM. 

'  I AHE  paper  on  Analysis  and  Synthesis  in  Painting  was 
-*•     written  to  clear  the  way  for  this.    Having -considered 
the  great  theoretical  question  at  length,  we  can  now  dis- 
pose'of  this  ^practical  one  briefly. 

The  Pre-Raphaelite  movement  is  understood  to  have 
combined  two  very  distinct  aims:  first,  the  intellectual 
elevation  of  art  by  the  choice  of  noble  and  original  sub- 
jects, and,  secondly,  its  technical  advancement  by  a  new 
and  minute  analysis  of  nature.  The  movement  was  there- 
fore at  the  same  time  very  ambitious  intellectually,  and 
very  arduous  practically,  requiring  both  considerable  men- 
tal power  for  conception  and  enormous  labor  of  hand  for 
realization.  In  two  words,  the  Pre-Raphaelites  were 
intellectual  and  analytic,  both  to  a  superlative  degree, 
previous  art,  in  England  at  least,  having  generally  been 
unintellectual  (much  of  it  even  bete),  and  either  nobly 
synthetic  (Reynolds,  Gainsborough,  Turner),  or  feebly 
attempting  synthesis  (West,  Haydon,  &c.),  or  again  par- 
tially analytic  (Wilkie,  Landseer),  but  never  yet  resolutely 
and  thoroughly  analytic. 

The  Pre-Raphaelite  movement  in  painting  was  contem- 
porary with  similar  tendencies  in  the  outer  public  mind. 
We  are  generally  more  intellectual  than  men  of  the  last 
generation,  because  more  familiar  with  literature,  and 
consequently  with  many  forms  of  thought  which  find  full 
expression  in  literature,  yet  have  no  sufficient  room  for 
development  in  the  fragmentary  patchwork  of  common 
conversation.  The  steady  increase  of  scientific  studies 
has  also  given  very  many  of  us  the  habit  of  analysis. 
The  father  and  mother  of  modern  Pre-Raphaelitism  were 


The  Reaction  from  Pre-Raphaelitism.       201 


modern  literary  thought  and  modern  scientific  investigation 
of  the  facts  of  nature. 

The  reader  is  familiar  with  the  chief  products  of  the 
movement.  He  has  a  general  idea  of  what  constitutes  a 
Pre-Raphaelite  picture.  But  if  he  endeavors  to  construct 
a  definition  of  a  Pre-Raphaelite  picture,  he  will  find  it 
exceedingly  difficult ;  I  venture  to  add  that  he  will  not  be 
able  to  construct  such  a  definition  at  all  without  including 
some  of  the  defects  of  Pre-Raphaelitism ;  and  I  argue  that 
as  in  course  of  time,  by  a  reaction  natural  to  men  of  high 
artistic  endowments,  the  Pre-Raphaelite  leaders  will  prob- 
ably get  rid  of  these  defects,  they  will  then  produce  works 
which,  however  excellent,  will  no  longer  be  recognisable 
as  Pre-Raphaelite  works,  or  distinguishable  by  the  more 
obvious  marks  of  the  sect. 

The  marks  of  the  sect  were  intellectual  and  emotional 
intensity,  marvellous  power  of  analysis,  sensitiveness  to 
strong  colors,  insensitiveness  to  faint  modulations  of  sober 
tint,  curious  enjoyment  of  quaintness  and  rigidity  in  ar- 
rangement, absolute  indifference  to  grace,  and  size,  and 
majesty. 

Now  as  the  greatest  artists  hitherto  have  -become  syn- 
thetic as  they  approached  maturity,  and  used  analysis  only 
for  the  acquisition  of  knowledge,  it  seemed  likely  that 
after  a  while  the  Pre-Raphaelites  would  begin  to  feel 
that  so  long  as  they  combined  the  greatest  possible  amount 
of  analysis  with  the  smallest  allowable  degree  of  synthesis 
they  were  paying  unequal  worship  to  the  dual  deity  of 
art.  The  pendulum  had  swung  so  far  on  the  side  of 
analysis,  that  it  needed  little  foresight  to  predict  a  move- 
ment in  the  opposite  direction. 

Besides,  there  was  the  question  of  individual  tempera- 
ment, a  consideration  not  to  be  overlooked  in  dealing  with 
an  art  so  peculiarly  the  product  of  individual  organiza- 
tions.* It  needed  not  only  wonderful  patience  to  produce 

*  For  example,  the  temperament  of  Horace  Vernet.  For  Vernet  to 
have  attempted  to  paint  like  Holman  Hunt  would  have  been  artistic 
suicide.  Vernet,  at  the  best,  could  only  have  made  himself  a  third-rate 
Pre-Raphaelite,  and  as  such  would  not  have  expressed  one-hundredth 


202        The  Reaction  from  Pre-Eaphaelitism. 

Pre-Raphaelite  pictures,  it  needed  also  the  peculiar  faculty 
of  dwelling  long  on  one  subject.  Some  men  can  do  this 
quite  contentedly,  others  cannot  endure  to  do  it  all. 
Leonardo  really  liked  to  be  long  about  a  picture,  did  not 
wish  to  see  it  finished,  as  some  mothers  do  not  wish  to 
see  their  children  become  men  and  women.  On  the  other 
hand,  artists  like  Turner  and  Gustave  Dore,  being  pressed 
by  multitudes  of  conceptions,  are  impatient  to  get  the 
idea  of  to-day  expressed  that  to-morrow  may  be  given  to 
to-morrow's  thought.  It  is  evident  that  artists  of  this 
latter  class  will  always  seek  for  expeditious  modes  of 
expression,  and  refuse  long  elaboration,  not  because  they 
do  n*ot  see  detail,  but  because  they  would  rather  utter  a 
thousand  thoughts  briefly  than  ten  thoughts  elaborately. 

Then,  again,  though  Pre-Raphaelite  work  when  at  its 
best  is  very  admirable,  its  aims  are  so  high,  and  its  preten- 
sions so  great  that  it  does  not  admit  of  mediocrity.  No 
painter,  who  held  large  views  of  his  art,  could  endure  to 
produce  second-rate  Pre-Raphaelite  pictures.  Art  which 
professes  only  to  suggest  and  remind,  may  fail  in  many 
things,  and  still  be  precious  to  us  for  its  obscure  hints  of 
natural  beauty ;  art  which  professes  to  be  perfect  imitation 
makes  such  immense  claims  that  success  is  proportionately 
more  difficult.  Pre-Raphaelitism  was  only  too  uncom- 
promising ;  for  the  art  of  painting  is  confessedly  a  compro- 
mise. And  the  minuter  the  detail  you  profess  to  give,  the 
more  accurate  must  your  information  be.  Prudent  men 
keep  within  their  science,  and  do  not  profess  to  know 
every  thing ;  he  who  offers  to  tell  us  the  whole  truth,  has 
need  of  enormous  knowledge. 

It  is  on  these  grounds  that  I  have  always  felt  convinced 
that  the  Pre-Raphaelites  would  not  effect  that  universal 

part  of  the  conceptions  he  lived  to  realize.  Such  as  he  was,  without 
being  in  the  strict  sense  a  great  painter,  he  expressed  his  particular  talent 
most  completely  ;  and  I  argue  that  if  he  had  attempted  to  be  a  Pre- 
Raphaelite  that  particular  talent  of  his  would  never  have  found  expression 
at  all.  But  there  need  be  little  apprehension,  in  these  days,  of  such  loss 
as  this  would  have  been  ;  for  men  of  original  genius  will  not  now  submit 
to  any  system,  however  excellent  in  itself,  when  submission  would  involve 
the  stifling  of  their  own  faculties,  and  the  abdication  of  their  own  place. 


The  Reaction  from  Pre-Raphaelitism.       203 

and  permanent  revolution  in  our  school  of  painting  which 
Mr.  Ruskin  seems  at  one  time  to  have  anticipated.  That 
they  have  exercised  a  great  and,  on  the  whole,  a  beneficial 
influence  is  indisputable ;  that  they  will  succeed  in  im- 
posing the  two  principles  of  intellectual  conception  and 
technical  elaboration  on  the  English  school  generally  is 
not  to  be  hoped  for.  Still  less  is  it  probable  that  they 
will  revolutionize  the  disciplined  schools  of  the  Con- 
tinent. 

One  of  the  conclusions  about  painting,  to  which  I  have 
been  most  unwillingly  driven,  is  that  it  is  not  necessarily 
an  intellectual  occupation.  There  are  painters  who  are 
intellectual  men,  and  such  men  put  an  intellectual  element 
into  their  art ;  but  there  are  also  very  good  painters  who 
are  not,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  intellectual.  Good 
eyes,  and  skilful  fingers,  are  of  more  practical  importance 
to  a  painter  than  understanding.  This  is  a  reason  why  an 
intellectual  school  of  painting  is  not  likely  to  be  realized, 
for  in  every  school  there  will  be  men  of  strong  sight  and 
manual  skill  without  much  power  of  thought. 

Then  as  to  minute  elaboration,  the  mightiest  painting 
refuses  it  almost  always,  for  master-painters  will  not  waste 
months  in  expressing  facts  by  copyism  which  they  can 
express  better  by  their  magic  in  a  day.  That  magic  may 
be  defined  as  the  power  of  representing  things  with  pro- 
founder  truth  by  substitution  of  abstract  results  of  study, 
than  by  imitation  of  the  object.  As  the  Pre-Raphaelites 
acquire  this  power,  they  will  desist  from  minute  elabora- 
tion ;  and  other  artists,  endowed  from  the  beginning  with 
this  gift,  will  reject  the  Pre-Raphaelite  discipline. 

It  was  curious  to  observe  this  turning  point  in  the 
career  of  Millais.  The  following  quotation  from  Mr.  Rus- 
kin's  Notes  on  the  Academy  Exhibition  of  1857  marks  it: 
"The  change  in  his  manner,  from  the  years  of  Ophelia 
and  Mariana  to  1857,  is  not  merely  Fall,  it  is  Catas- 
trophe; not  merely  a  loss  of  power,  but  a  reversal  of 
principle;  his  excellence  has  been  effaced,  'as  a  man 
wipeth  a  dish  —  wiping  it,  and  turning  it  upside  down.' " 
The  truth  is,  that  Millais,  before  going  on  his  new  tack, 


204        The  Reaction  from  Pre-Eaphaelitism. 

was  for  a  while  arrested  in  his  progress,  even  visibly 
receding,  his  uncertain  sails  shivering  powerless  in  the 
wind.  And  Mr.  Ruskin,  the  most  keenly  interested  on- 
looker, feeling  instinctively  that  the  Pre-Raphaelite  period 
was  over,  raised  this  bitter  cry  of  disappointment  and 
regret.  Since  then  Millais  paints  better  than  ever,  but 
he  is  no  longer  a  Pre-Raphaelite.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
picture  called  "  My  first  Sermon,"  a  most  charming,  love- 
able,  covetable  work,  but  not  in  any  obvious  way  bearing 
the  marks  of  Pre-Raphaelitism.  The  thought  is  pretty 
and  interesting,  but  not  profound ;  the  execution  skilful, 
but  not  elaborate.  It  is  a  quite  successful  bit  of  popular 
painting,  equal  to  Leslie  in  felicity  of  expression,  superior 
to  him  in  color.  But  if  "  My  first  Sermon "  is  a  Pre- 
Raphaelite  work,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  recognize  the  signs  by 
which  it  is  known  as  such.  And  the  illustrations  to 
popular  novels  which  Millais  has  of  late  years  so  richly 
given  us  do  not  visibly  exemplify  the  principles  of  Pre- 
Raphaelitism. 

It  is  of  course  difficult  to  prove  positively  that  any 
artist  of  the  realist  schools  is  or  is  not  a  Pre-Raphaelite, 
because  the  Pre-Raphaelites  have  never  publicly  defined 
their  doctrines ;  wisely  leaving  the  public  and  the  critics 
to  find  them  out  as  they  best  might,  and  by  this  policy 
reserving  much  liberty  of  action.  I  have  the  greatest 
respect  for  Millais,  who,  though  very  unequal  and  with 
grave  defects,  seems  to  me  as  unquestionably  a  man  of 
genius  as  either  Keats  or  Tennyson,  and  as  sure  of  immor- 
tality. But  if  Millais  is  a  Pre-Raphaelite  now,  I  see 
nothing  to  exclude  Landseer,  or  Leslie,  or  any  other 
thorough  modern,  from  the  sect.  We  have  been  told 
that  one  important  distinction  of  Pre-Raphaelitism  was 
that,  whereas  other  men  illustrated  poets  and  novelists, 
the  Pre-Raphaelites  were  to  be  their  own  poets,  yet  as 
Leslie  illustrated  Cervantes  so  Millais  illustrates  Mr.  An- 
thony Trollope.  We  have  been  told  that  another  distinc- 
tion of  Pre-Raphaelitism  was  its  care  and  labor  in  detail, 
but  the  present  work  of  Millais  is  not  so  careful  as  that  of 
Gerome,  or.  Meissonier,  or  Blaise  Desgoffe,  yet  nobody 


The  Reaction  from  Pre-Raphaelitism.       205 

calls  these  men  Pre-Raphaelites.  We  may  be  told  now 
that  this  popularized  art  is  the  natural  development  of 
Pre-Raphaelitism,  which  is  becoming  freer  in  workman- 
ship and  more  popular  in  subject ;  that  is  to  say,  that  the 
school  has  developed  itself  into  its  opposite,  as  Protestant- 
ism sometimes  "develops"  itself  into  Romanism.  This 
is  not  development :  it  is  reaction.  Now  either  Pre- 
Raphaelitism  has  a  peculiar  doctrine,  or  it  has  not.  If  it 
has  a  peculiar  doctrine,  in  what  respect  is  that  doctrine 
exemplified  in  the  present  work  of  Millais,  and  not  exem- 
plified in  the  work  of  Landseer  and  Frith  ?  And  if  Pre- 
Raphaelitism  has  no  peculiar  doctrine  at  all,  —  what  is  it  ? 

There  are  states  of  the  public  mind  which  produce 
artistic  results  at  particular  times  which,  for  lack  of  the 
necessary  heat  and  excitement,  no  subsequent  epoch  can 
ever  engender.  And  in  these  days  we  live  intellectually 
so  fast  that  such  epochs  occur  every  twenty  years.  They 
leave  their  mark  in  some  work  of  inimitable  art,  never 
again  to  be  produced  by  the  intelligence  of  man.  Mar- 
mion,  Ivanhoe,  Faust,  Don  Juan,  Jocelyn,  In  Memoriam, 
Vanity  Fair,  are  not  to  be  written  twice.  And  I  could 
name  as  many  pictures  which  are  not  to  be  painted  twice, 
but  in  this  place  it  is  only  necessary  to  point  to  Hunt's 
"  Finding  of  the  Saviour  in  the  Temple,"  as  the  culmi- 
nating and  representative  Pre-Raphaelite  figure  picture, 
and  Brett's  "  Val  d'Aosta"  as  the  culminating  and  repre- 
sentative Pre-Raphaelite  landscape.  Those  pictures  had 
the  qualities,  and  the  defects,  of  the  sect.  There  could  be 
no  question  about  how  those  works  ought  to  be  classed ; 
they  stood  as  visibly  distinct  from  other  forms  of  art  as 
soldiers  in  full  uniform  do  from  a  crowd  of  civilians. 

But  since  then,  Pre-Raphaelitism,  having  produced  the 
one  or  two  representative  works  in  which  it  seems  to  be  a 
law  of  nature  that  each  new  thought  shall  embody  itself, 
is  losing  its  individuality,  and  melting  into  other  art  as  an 
iceberg  drifting  southwards  slowly  melts  and  loses  itself 
in  the  warm  seas  that  there  surround  it.  It  will  exist 
still,  as  water  exists  mingled  with  other  water ;  but  it  will 
be  no  longer  a  definite,  visible,  isolated  power. 


206        The  Reaction  from  Pre-Raphaelitism. 

Force  is  not  lost,  but  it  becomes  untraceable  when 
diffused,  and  is  only  recognizable  by  us  when  concen- 
trated, or  at  its  source.  Pre-Raphaelitism  has  been 
unquestionably  a  force,  —  a  very  great  force,  —  and  its 
effects,  though  it  may  cease  to  exist,  will  be  lasting.  It 
was  a  strong  and  beneficial  reaction  from  indolent  synthesis 
,to  laborious  analysis,  and  from  mental  inactivity  to  new 
thought  and  emotion,  —  a  great  sharpening  of  the  sight 
and  rousing  of  the  intellect,  and  even  a  fresh  stimulus  to 
the  feelings.  The  irresistible  pendulum  swung  then  to- 
wards analysis  and  thought ;  it  is  now  swinging  back 
towards  synthesis  and  manual  power.  Such  reactions 
take  place  in  the  private  lives  of  individual  artists.  They 
try  hard  for  synthesis  and  unity,  then  find  the  details 
weak,  and  give  themselves  up  to  analysis ;  after  that,  they 
perceive,  shortly,  an  alarming  lack  of  unity,  and  so  swing 
back  to  synthesis. 

The  representative  of  the  most  recent  tendency  is  Mr. 
Whistler.  Of  his  work  as  an  etcher,  I  shall  have  to  speak 
at  length  before  long.  As  a  painter,  he  has  the  rare 
faculty  of  true  oil-sketching,  selecting,  with  certainty,  the 
most  essential  truths.  Mr.  Whistler's  merits  may  be  best 
expressed  in  this  way :  Given  a  canvas,  so  many  feet 
square,  and  so  many  hours  to  cover  it  in,  Mr.  Whistler 
will  put  more  truths,  and  truths  of  greater  importance, 
upon  that  canvas,  in  the  givek  time,  than  most  of  his 
contemporaries.  Such  a  faculty  is  of  the  utmost  value  to 
a  landscape  painter,  on  account  of  the  rapid  changes  of 
vegetation.*  Mr.  Whistler  seems  insensible  to  beauty, 
which  is  a  grievous  defect  in  any  artist ;  but  his  work  is 
redeemed  from  vulgarity  by  strange  sensitiveness  to  color 
and  character.  It  is  audacious,  almost  impudent,  in  man- 
ner ;  but  it  is  not  affected,  though  it  looks  so  at  first,  and 

*  No  summer  landscape  can  be  painted  from  nature  if  it  takes  more 
than  a  month,  no  spring  or  autumn  landscape  if  it  takes  more  than  a  fort- 
night. I  am  disposed  to  believe  now  that  the  most  precious  results  of 
landscape  painting  are  frank  and  genuine  color  sketches  done  from  nature 
at  high  speed.  Any  thing  further  must  be  done  in  the  studio,  and  it  is 
doubtful  whether  the  studio  elaboration  is  in  all  cases  worth  the  rough 
note  from  nature. 


The  Reaction  from.  Pre-Raphaditism.       207 

even  its  audacity  is  based  on  directness  and  simplicity  of 
purpose.  I  blamed  his  "  Woman  in  White,"  because  it 
was  hideous ;  and  hideous  pictures  are  always  detestable, 
however  meritorious.  But  the  "Woman  in  White"  was 
full  of  strong  work. 

Nature  is  perpetually  breaking  bounds.  We  hedge 
thought  round  with  formulas;  and,  in  a  few  years,  being 4 
too  narrow,  they  are  broken  before  we  are  aware  of  it. 
The  Pre-Raphaelite  boundaries  exist  no  longer.  "  Even 
Pre-Raphaelitism,"  says  Mr.  Ruskin,  "  is  degenerating 
and  forgetting  the  principle  with  which  it  set  out  —  that 
nobility  of  subject  is  a  main  thing  in  painting  ;  nay,  the 
Pre-Raphaelites  are  forgetting  even  conscientiousness  of 
workmanship."  Still,  we  owe  them  the  acknowledgment 
that  they  taught  us,  at  a  time  when  we  needed  the  lesson, 
that  nature  repays  every  new  analysis,  and  that  art  may 
be  grave  and  thoughtful. 


208        The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society. 


XL 

THE  PAINTER  IN  HIS   RELATION  TO    SOCIETY. 

"  TF  a  man  applies  himself  to  servile  or  mechanic 
•*•  employments,  his  industry  in  those  things  is  a  proof 
of  his  inattention  to  nobler  studies.  No  young  man  of 
noble  birth  or  liberal  sentiments,  from  seeing  the  Jupiter  at 
Pisa  would  desire  to  be  Phidias,  or  from  the  sight  of  the 
Juno  at  Argos  to  be  Polydetus."  So  says  old  Plutarch ; 
and  we  may  therefore  argue  from  this  passage  alone,  if 
other  proofs  were  wanting,  that  the  artist  was,  in  his  time, 
socially  considered,  a  Despised  person.  The  secret  of  Plu- 
tarch's contempt  for  Phidias  lies  in  the  word  servile.  He 
respected  government  and  not  servitude.  He  liked  the 
rough  virtues,  often  in  reality  very  great  vices,  which  lead 
men  to  power,  and  he  had  an  honest  contempt  for  such 
mean  genius  as  that  of  Phidias  and  Polycletus,  which 
exercised  itself  in  the  service  of  mankind. 

Most  people  are  of  Plutarch's  opinion  ;  he  only  gave 
a  frank  expression  to  one  of  the.  fundamental  instincts  of 
humanity.  The  thermometer  does  not  more  accurately 
indicate  the  precise  degree  of  caloric  present  in  any  fluid, 
than  the  popular  respect  the  degree  of  governmental  power 
present  at  any  given  epoch  in  any  one  class  of  society.  Its 
indications  are  quite  reliable.  Men  respect  only  power. 
They  detect  the  exact  amount  of  it  present  in  any  class 
of  their  contemporaries  with  an  instinct  which  is  absolutely 
infallible,  and  in  strict  proportion  to  the  amount  of  power 
present  is  the  degree  of  deference  yielded. 

The  sword  has  at  all  times  been  an  exceedingly  power- 
ful instrument.  So  the  military  profession  has  always  been 
in  the  highest  degree  respectable,  and  from  the  days  of 
Alexander  of  Macedon,  downwards,  kings  and  emperors 


The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society.        209 

have  practically  adopted  this  profession  without  derogating 
from  the  dignity  of  their  birth. 

When  there  is  little  intellectual  enlightenment  the  fear 
of  the  supernatural  tyrannizes  over  the  masses.  An 
eminently  intelligent  class  has  always  turned  this  vague 
dread  to  political  account  as  an  instrument  of  authority 
stronger  than  weapons  of  steel,  and  the  temple  has  men- 
aced the  world  as  sternly  as  the  fortress.  By  this  threat- 
ening, authoritative  attitude,  the  sacerdotal  body  first 
conquered  the  world's  respect.  This  position  was  not 
gained,  nor  ever  could  have  been  gained,  by  mild  persua- 
sion, but  by  rack  and  red-hot  pincers  in  this  world,  and 
menaces  of  eternal  tortures  for  the  next.* 

Then,  in  a  more  civilized  state,  when  the  sword  can  no 
longer  settle  private  quarrels,  and  interests  become  more 
complex,  a  third  class  makes  itself  felt  as  a  power  in 
society,  more  subtle  and  silent  in  its  workings  .than  the 
other  two,  yet  gradually  absorbing  into  its  own  hands  the 
government  of  property,  the  guardianship  of  orphans,  and 
the  administration  of  justice.  It  is  to  the  vast,  though 
unrecognized,  influence  of  barristers  and  attorneys  that  the 
legal  profession  owes  that  part  of  its  social  position  for 
which  the  high  public  functionaries,  chosen  from  its  ranks, 
are  not  in  themselves  a  satisfactory  explanation.  There  is, 
however,  a  very  curious  social  distinction  between  the  two 
branches  of  this  profession,  which  I  reserve  for  the  present, 
and  yet  which  will  itself  be  found  to  bear  out  the  argu- 
ment that  political  power  is  the  real  standard  of  social 
respectability. 

Since  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  two  or 
three  other  occupations  have  risen  into  such  importance  as 
to  rival  the  elder  professions. 

To  spin  cotton  thread,  to  weave  calico,  to  stain  it  with 
patterns,  to  manufacture  carpets,  and  blankets,  and  even 
steel  pens,  have  become  avenues  to  political  power.  And 
to  do  these  things  on  a  large  scale  is  rapidly  becoming 
respectable,  even  in  the  strictest  conventional  sense.  A 

*  If  the  reader  doubts  this,  let  him  study  the  history  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
14 


210        The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society. 

little  external  roughness  of  manner,  and  provincialism  of 
dialect,  may  retard  the  recognition  of  the  industrial  chiefs 
in  their  true  character,  but  the  people  will  find  out  before 
long,  who  have  not  found  it  out  already,  that  when  a  man 
governs  a  thousand  artisans  he  is  a  leader  of  men  and  a 
power  in  the  state.  When  this  is  generally  understood 
the  great  industrial  chief  will  rank  side  by  side  with  the 
great  land-owner  in  the  popular  estimation. 

Even  the  mere  capitalist,  who  lives  quietly  on  the  inter- 
est of  his  fortune,  is  respected  for  the  great  reserve  of 
power  represented  by  the  sum  he  possesses.  But  when  he 
employs  this  power  actively  in  the  affairs  of  other  individ- 
uals he  becomes  the  centre  of  forces  whose  complicated 
effects  it  is  impossible  to  calculate  ;  and  so  the  money-lender 
has  a  place  in  the  modern  world  which  becomes  stronger 
in  proportion  to  the  increased  security  of  his  transactions, 
and  the  extension  of  commerce,  whereof  he  holds  the 
strings.  "  I  very  early  discerned,"  said  Heinrich  Heine, 
"  that  bankers  would  one  day  be  the  rulers  of  the  world." 

But  the  social  history  of  literature  is  the  best  illustra- 
tion of  the  inherent  respectability  of  power.  In  the  days 
when  Sir  Everard  Waverley,  of  Waverley  Honor,  received 
political  intelligence  through  the  medium  of  Mr.  Dyer's 
manuscript  "  Weekly  News-letter,"  and  Mr.  Dyer  would 
often  humbly  plead  for  an  extra  gratuity  from  the  gen- 
tlemen who  patronized  him  on  account  of  the  expense  he 
had  been  put  to  in  collecting  information  in  coffee-houses, — 
in  those  days,  I  fancy,  the  provincial  magnate  had  little 
conception  of  the  power  which  the  successors  of  good  Mr. 
Dyer  were  destined  to  wield  in  these  latter  days,  when  a 
newspaper  correspondent  is  respectfully  received  by  a 
Governor- General  of  India,  and  confidentially  informed  by 
a  commander-in-chief  of  the  details  of  his  strategy,  on  the 
sole  condition  that  he  will  not  divulge  them  at  the  seat  of 
war.  Writers  are  often  earnest,  but  they  are  not  respected 
for  their  earnestness ;  they  are  often  humane  and  tender- 
hearted, but  they  are  not  respected  for  their  gentleness ; 
but  the  writer  who  is  sure  of  the  public  ear,  as,  for  in- 
stance, the  contributor  to  an  established  periodical,  has  an 


The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society.        211 

appreciable  social  and  political  power,  and  it  is  for  that 
power  alone  that  literature  has  begun  to  be  respected. 

Before  a  man  of  rank  will  enter  any  profession  he  al- 
ways asks  himself,  more  or  less  consciously,  "  Will  this 
business  help  me  to  govern  ?  "  and  if  a  career  does  not 
open  a  fair  prospect  of  governmental  influence  he  will  not 
concern  himself  with  it. 

Perhaps  we  ought  to  respect  virtue  more  than  power, 
but  we  don't.  Moral  excellence,  as  an  abstraction,  or  in 
men  long  ago  dead,  who  are  become,  as  it  were,  mere 
shadows  and  abstractions,  is  very  much  extolled  indeed ; 
but  somehow,  when  embodied  in  an  individual  person 
actually  existing  in  the  world,  the  noblest  qualities  are  apt 
to  lose  their  ideal  lustre. 

The  reader  may  answer  this  by  an  appeal  to  history, 
and  try  to  show  how  tyrants  have  been  hated  and  resisted. 
But  no  student  who  has  read  history  by  the  light  of  com- 
mon sense  can  have  failed  to  perceive  that  it  is  not  the 
strong,  steady  tyranny  of  power  that  has  ever  been  re- 
garded with  disfavor  by  the  masses,  but  only  the  spasmodic 
cruelties  of  weak  sovereigns,  whose  power  was  slipping 
from  their  grasp.  It  was  the  weakness  of  the  Nea- 
politan dynasty,  and  not  its  cruelty,  which  caused  our 
political  chiefs  to  speak  with  such  contempt  of  it  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  Had  the  King  of  Naples  been  a 
powerful  sovereign,  Lord  Palmerston  would  have  spoken 
of  him  in  the  same  respectful  language  he  was  accustomed 
to  employ  when  alluding  to  an  august  ally,  his  Imperial 
Majesty  the  Emperor  of  the  French.  And  all  through 
what  we  are  taught  to  call  "  History,"  you  will  find  that 
the  strong  tyrant  is  very  much  respected,  and  that  it  is  on 
the  weak  tyrant,  his  descendant,  that  all  his  sins  are  vis- 
ited, both  by  the  people  who  rebel  against  him,  and  the 
writers  who  hold  him  up  to  the  execration  of  a  discrimi- 
nating public. 

I  suppose  that  this  instinctive  reverence  for  the  mighty 
is  a  natural  law  essential  to  the  cohesion  of  society.  De- 
veloped to  excess,  it  becomes,  however,  ineffably  mean  and 
contemptible.  Mr.  Thackeray's  ideal  of  a  "snob"  is 
merely  a  person  in  whom  this  instinct  predominates/ 


212        The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society. 

If  the  reader  has  ever  felt  the  peculiar  physical  sensa- 
tion produced  on  the  nervous  system  by  contact  with  some 
individual  of  enormous  power,  he  will  not  think  it  an 
exaggeration  to  attribute  much  of  the  influence  exercised 
by  very  powerful  persons  over  the  rest  of  their  species  to  a 
sense  existing  in  the  nature  of  every  one  of  us  which  was 
intended  to  feel  this  peculiar  influence,  and  prepare  men 
beforehand  for  submission.  Who  could  have  touched 
Caesar  without  feeling  this  magnetic  emanation?  Dr. 
Livingstone  says  that  the  contact  of  the  lion's  paw  conquers 
the  will  of  its  victim,  and  makes  him  insensible  to  its  bite. 
So  a  great  human  power  fascinates  the  imagination  and 
subdues  the  will.  Before  the  kings  of  men  open  their 
lips  the  listeners  are  ready  to  obey.  In  the  presence  of  a 
Russian  autocrat  the  head  swims  with  a  vague  sense  of  the 
infinity  of  his  influence  and  the  inconceivable  vastness  of 
his  empire.  Down  the  great  scales  of  life  this  effect  on 
the  imagination  becomes  less  and  less  in  proportion  to  the 
diminution  of  power,  till  it  causes  mere  politeness  to  the 
landed  proprietor,  who  is  king  only  of  a  few  acres. 

An  old  gentleman,  a  Frenchman,  whom  I  knew  very 
well,  was  one  day  walking  down  the  Rue  Vivienne  in 
Paris.  He  was  absorbed  in  calculations,  for  he  was  a 
member  of  one  of  the  greatest  financial  houses  in  Europe, 
and  it  was  a  busy  time  for  their  house,  which  had  large 
transactions  with  embarrassed  sovereigns.  Lost  to  all 
surrounding  objects,  my  friend  suddenly  came  in  contact 
with  a  foot  passenger  walking  in  the  opposite  direction, 
lifted  his  hat  to  apologize,  and  found  himself  face  to  face 
with  a  little  man  who  at  that  time  was  making  a  consid- 
erable noise  in  the  world.  The  little  man  whom  my 
friend  M.  O had  jostled  off  the  footpath  was  the  Em- 
peror Napoleon  the  First,  then  at  the  very  height  of  his 
power,  taking  a  quiet  walk  with  Duroc,  as  his  custom  was. 

Now  M.  O told  me  this  story  one  evening  as  we 

were  walking  together  down  the  same  street,  and  I  re- 
member he  commented  on  the  odd  sensation  he  had  expe- 
rienced. Having  a  turn  for  philosophical  reflection,  he 
was  much  interested  in  trying  to  account  to  himself  for  a 


The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society.        213 

certain  fascination  which  had  fixed  him  to  the  spot  for 
some  minutes  after  the  accident.  He  had  felt  the 

shock  of  immeasurable  power.  The  man  whom  M.  O 

had  pushed  off  the  footpath  was  at  that  very  hour  shaking 
the  thrones  of  the  world.  Every  king  in  Europe  feared 
him.  My  friend  felt,  no  doubt,  as  if  he  had  come  into  con- 
tact with  something  superhuman. 

I  can  realize  the  sensation  from  having  myself  expe- 
rienced it  in  a  less  degree.  Once,  at  a  ball  in  Paris,  I 
was  talking  with  an  old  French  general,  when  a  third  per- 
son, also  in  uniform,  came  and  shook  hands  with  my  neigh- 
bor. "Eh  bien,  comment  $a  va-t-il?"  were  the  stranger's 
remarkable  words,  —  nothing  in  them  to  astonish  or  elec- 
trify one.  Yet  I  did  feel  an  odd,  tingling  sensation,  for 
the  stranger's  waxed  moustachios  stood  out  like  rats'  tails, 
the  eye  was  dull  and  glassy,  the  face  expressionless,  like  a 
bronze  bust,  and  the  nose  strangely  familiarized  to  me 
already  in  Punch.  It  was  Napoleon  III. 

The  other  half  of  the  argument,  namely,  that  political 
impotence  is  held  contemptible,  is  just  as  easy  to  prove. 
Society  does  not  concern  itself  with  the  inherent  nobleness 
of  any  occupation,  only  with  its  governmental  power.  For 
instance,  the  medical  profession,  in  itself  one  of  the  very 
noblest  of  callings,  and  one  of  the  most  glorious  fields  in 
the  realms  of  human  exertion,  is  only  considered  respect- 
able by  the  middle-class,  —  the  upper,  or  governing  classes 
do  not  own  it.  People  of  rank  receive  their  "  medical 
attendant"  with  no  more  notion  that  he  is  their  intel- 
lectual equal  than  if  he  were  only  a  superior  species  of 
hair-dresser,  or  any  other  attendant  (note  the  peculiar  offen- 
siveness  of  the  phrase).  The  work  of  surgeons  and  phy- 
sicians requires  very  careful  training,  and  when  it  passes 
out  of  the  limits  of  routine  calls  into  exercise  the  very 
highest  moral  and  intellectual  qualities  ;  but  these  men 
have  no  place  in  society  because  their  profession  does 
not  conduct  them  to  political  power.  If  a  nobleman's 
daughter  were  to  form  an  attachment  for  her  "  medical 
man,"  her  family  would  be  thrown  into  the  uttermost  con- 
sternation, whereas  she  may  marry  a  country  parson  with- 
out loss  of  caste. 


214        The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society. 

Another  very  curious  illustration  is  supplied  by  the  two 
branches  of  the  legal  profession.  The  bar  is  an  avenue  to 
political  power,  but  an  attorney's  office  is  not  (except  in  so 
far  as  a  country  solicitor  in  large  practice  may  sometimes 
influence  an  election).  So  this  busier  and  more  generally 
lucrative  branch  is  not  recognized  by  society  on  equal 
terms.  An  attorney  is  a  gentleman  by  Act  of  Parliament, 
but  the  higher  circles  of  society  do  not  ratify  the  parlia- 
mentary title  by  receiving  him  as  an  equal,  and  younger 
sons  of  noble  families  never  by  any  chance  get  themselves 
articled  to  attorneys.  The  attorney,  however,  indemnifies 
himself  for  his  social  wrongs  by  patronizing  barristers  at 
their  entrance  into  life,  and  governing  proprietors  through 
his  intimate  knowledge  of  their  private  affairs. 

All  these  inconsistencies  are  at  once  explained  by  the 
theory  that  power  is  respectability.  The  more  power  a 
man  has,  the  more  he  will  be  respected,  and  the  less  power 
he  has,  the  less  he  will  be  respected,  till  we  come  down  to 
those  individuals  whose  power  is  so  exceedingly  limited  as 
to  excite  no  sensations  of  respect  whatever. 

Now  I  should  like  to  know  how  a  man  is  ever  to  make 
himself  terrible  by  painting  pretty  little  pictures,  or  even 
great  big  ugly  ones  ?  Who  is  afraid  of  a  picture  ?  It 
cannot  kill  one  like  a  sword,  nor  damage  one's  fair  fame 
like  a  newspaper,  nor  hold  one  up  to  the  reprobation  of  the 
godly  like  a  preacher.  It  is  absolutely  innocuous.  People 
are  not  forced  to  buy  it,  nor  even  to  look  at  it.  There  it 
hangs  in  its  pretty  gilt  frame,  saying,  "  Pray  come  and  look 
at  me,  ladies  and  gentlemen  ;  I  am  really  very  beautiful 
and  very  true,  and  —  my  price  is  marked  in  the  catalogue." 

And  accordingly,  if  we  study  the  social  position  of  the 
artist,  we  shall  find  it  slippery,  unsatisfactory,  and  insecure. 
Goethe  observes  somewhere,  that  though  the  artist  is  a 
privileged  person,  and  though  his  talent  has  an  inward 
certainty,  its  outward  relation  is  peculiarly  uncertain.  One 
can  easily  fancy  that  the  position  of  a  great  Greek  sculptor 
in  a  society  holding  Plutarch's  notions  must  have  been 
any  thing  but  pleasant.  And  since,  as  I  said  before,  the 
world  generally  is  quite  of  Plutarch's  opinion,  the  modern 


The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society.        215 

successors  of  Phidias,  whether  in  sculpture  or  other  fine 
art,  find  a  frank  and  equal  intercourse  with  the  general 
world  next  to  impossible  for  them. 

The  best  and  truest  pictures  of  contemporary  manners 
are,  undoubtedly,  to  be  found  in  what  the  French  call 
"studies  of  manners," or  those  modern  novels  in  which  the 
society  of  to-day  is  painted  from  the  life*  Let  us  see  how 
the  painter's  relation  to  this  society  is  sketched  by  one  or 
two  of  the  ablest  hands.* 

In  "  The  Newcoines,"  when  young  Clive  devotes  himself 
to  painting,  it  is  considered  a  family  disgrace  by  his  friends, 
whose  place  in  society,  by  the  way,  is  of  quite  recent 
acquisition,  and  whose  origin  is  so  low  that  they  are  all 
forced  to  tell  lies  about  it.  But  Clive  is  not  on  the  road  to 
power,  and  of  course,  without  power,  gets  no  consideration 
from  the  governing  classes.  His  occupation  withdraws 
him  from  the  society  of  gentlemen,  and  we  find  him,  not  at 
university  wine-parties  with  young  lords,  but  working  at 
Gandish's  with  a  set  of  low  flatterers  for  his  associates,  and 
the  son  of  a  domestic  servant  for  his  most  intimate  friend. 
That  reverend  puppy,  Charles  Honeyman,  the  perfect  in- 
carnation of  all  that  the  weakest  women  most  deeply  love 
and  reverence,  says  with  bland  dignity,  "  My  dear  Clive, 
there  are  degrees  in  society  which  we  must  respect.  You 
surely  cannot  think  of  being  a  professional  artist.  Such  a 
profession  is  very  well  for  your  protege  —  but  for  you  .  .  " 
when  Clive  vehemently  interrupts  him.  Mrs.  Hobson  New- 
come  tells  the  Colonel  that  his  boy  is  not  good  enough  to 
associate  with  hers,  because  "  he  lives  with  artists  and  all 
sorts  of  eccentric  people,"  whereas  hers  "  are  bred  on  quite 
a  different  plan.  Hobson  will  succeed  his  father  in  the 
bank,  and  dear  Samuel,"  she  trusts,  "will  go  into  the 
Church."  The  father  of  these  hopeful  young  gentlemen 
calls  Clive's  devotion  to  art  "  this  madcap  freak  of  turn- 
ing painter."  "  Confound  .it,"  says  he,  "  why  doesn't  my 
brother  set  him  up  in  some  respectable  business  ?  I  ain't 

*  Part  of  what  follows  is  abridged  from  a  review  article  contributed  by 
myself  to  the  "West  of  Scotland  Magazine  and  Review,"  and  entitled 
41  Artist-Life  in  Fiction." 


216        The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society. 

proud ;  I  have  not  married  an  earl's  daughter  .  . .  but  a 
painter  !  hang  it,  a  painter's  no  trade  at  all  —  I  don't  fancy 
seeing  one  of  our  family  sticking  up  pictures  for  sale.  I 
don't  like  it,  Barnes,"  and  two  minutes  afterwards  he 
heartily  damns  "  all  literary  men,  all  artists,  the  whole  lot 
of  them !  "  The  said  Barnes  agrees  pleasantly  with  his 
uncle,  and  farther  on  in  the  book  speaks  of  his  cousin 
Clive  as  "  a  beggarly  painter,  an  impudent  snob,  an  infer- 
nal young  puppy,"  and  so  forth.  Even  dive's  father  did 
not  seriously  believe  that  his  son  would  live  by  painting 
pictures,  but  considered  him  as  a  young  prince  who  chose 
to  amuse  himself  with  painting.  Mr.  Barnes  mentions  at 
home  "a  singular  whim  of  Colonel  Newcome,  who  can 
give  his  son  twelve  or  fifteen  hundred  a  year,  and  makes 
an  artist  of  him."  Ethel  writes  to  the  Colonel  from  Baden, 
"  You  will  order  Clive  not  to  sell  his  pictures,  won't  you  ? 
I  know  it  is  not  wrong,  but  your  son  might  look  higher 
than  to  be  an  artist.  It  is  a  rise  for  Mr.  Ridley,  but  a  fall 
for  him.  An  artist,  an  organist,  a  pianist,  all  these  are 
very  good  people  ;  but,  you  know,  not  '  de  noire  rnondej  and 
Clive  ought  to  belong  to  it."*  Mrs.  Mackenzie,  when 
Clive  in  his  adversity  tries  to  support  the  house  by  his 
labor,  says,  "  It  is  most  advisable  that  Clive  should  earn 
some  money  by  that  horrid  profession  he  has  chosen  to 
adopt  —  trade  I  call  it."  And  Thackeray  himself  says, 
"  The  Muse  of  Painting  is  a  lady,  whose  social  position  is 
not  altogether  recognized  with  us  as  yet.  The  polite  world 
permits  a  gentleman  to  amuse  himself  with  her,  but  to  take 
her  for  better  or  for  worse  !  forsake  all  other  chances  and 
cleave  unto  her!  to  assume  her  name  !  many  a  respectable 
person  would  be  as  much  shocked  at  the  notion,  as  if  his 
son  had  married  an  opera-dancer.  However,  it  never 
entered  into  Clive's  head  to  be  ashamed  of  the  profession 

*  Ethel's  reasoning  here  is  feminine.  She  confounds  together  persons 
of  creative  and  of  merely  interpretative  power.  They  ought  to  be  clearly 
separated,  thus:  — 

CREATORS.  INTERPRETERS. 

Poets.  Translators. 

Original  Painters.  Engravers  and  Copyists. 

Musical  Composers.  Musical  Performers. 


The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society.        217 

he  had  chosen,  and  though  he  saw  many  of  his  school- 
fellows in  the  world,  these  entering  into  the  army,  others 
talking  with  delight  of  college  and  its  pleasures  or  studies, 
yet,  having  made  up  his  mind  that  art  was  his  calling,  he 
refused  to  quit  her  for  any  other  mistress,  and  plied  his 
easel  very  stoutly." 

But  Thackeray  is  too  profound  a  student  of  human 
nature  not  to  let  this  continual  opposition  have  its  natural 
effect  in  the  end.  The  fact  is,  our  affections  must  be  very 
deeply  engaged  in  a  pursuit  to  enable  us  to  follow  it 
steadily  against  the  opinion  of  all  around  us ;  and  Clive, 
not  being  a  born  painter  like  J.  J.,  but  only  a  lad  of  good 
abilities  (not  of  genius  in  any  wise),  having  the  choice  of 
war  with  his  father  and  his  wife,  or  the  virtual  abandon- 
ment of  his  art,  does  as  most  of  us  would  under  similar  cir- 
cumstances, —  pursues  the  art  by  stealth  with  just  sufficient 
ardor  to  make  his  wife  jealous  of  it,  but  not  half  enough 
ardor  for  success  in  it.  So  he  is  miserable  (being  in  a 
false  position),  and  J.  J.  feelingly  laments  for  his  friend: 
"  Among  them  they  have  taken  him  away  from  his  art. 
They  don't  understand  him  when  he  talks  about  it,  they 
despise  him  for  pursuing  it.  Why  should  I  wonder  at 
that  ?  my  parents  despised  it  too,  and  my  father  was  not 
a  grand  gentleman  like  the  Colonel."  Ultimately,  when 
restored  to  prosperity  by  his  marriage  with  Ethel,  Clive 
shaves  his  beard  and  abandons  his  art.  The  moral  of  the 
story  is  thus  admirably  completed. 

This  J.  J.  Ridley,  the  true  artist,  is  only  the  son  of  a 
domestic  servant.  Thackeray  could  not  have  made  him 
the  son  of  a  gentleman,  because  the  obstacles  placed  by 
society  in  the  path  of  a  man  of  genius  of  sufficient  worldly 
rank  to  bring  him  within  its  influence  are  nearly  insur- 
mountable, and  all  the  terrible  difficulties  of  poverty  and 
ignorance  are  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  one  diffi- 
culty of  facing  social  degradation.  Gentlemen  are  the 
born  officers  of  the  social  army,  and  they  do  not  like  to 
have  their  epaulettes  torn  off.  But  men  in  the  ranks 
may  do  the  menial  work  of  the  world,  because  their  posi- 
tion is  so  humble  already  that  it  cannot  well  suffer  by  any 


218        The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society. 

act  not  absolutely  criminal.  So  fche  butler's  boy  may  paint 
pictures  as  he  might  have  brushed  boots,  and  nobody  con- 
siders it  a  degradation,  except  his  parents,  who  probably 
had  higher  views  for  their  son,  and  would  have  liked  to  see 
him  in  livery. 

The  other  professional  artists,  to  whom  Mr.  Thackeray 
introduces  us,  are  not  men  who  would  naturally  take  a 
strong  position  amongst  gentlemen.  Gandish,  the  martyr 
to  "  Igh  art,"  tells  Smee,  the  portrait-painter,  the  secret 
history  of  a  grand  work.  "  The  models  of  the  hancient 
Britons  in  that  pictur  alone  cost  me  thirty  pound  —  when 
I  was  a  struggling  man,  and  had  just  married  my  Betsy 
here.  You  reekonise  Boadishia,  Colonel,  with  the  Roman 
'elmet,  cuirass,  and  javeling  of  the  period  —  all  studied 
from  the  hantique,  sir,  the  glorious  hantique."  Again,  with 
what  a  wonderful  command  of  all  the  resources  of  our 
language  does  the  same  eloquent  artist  discourse  to  Colonel 
Newcome  on  his  illustrations  of  English  History.  "If 
you  do  me  the  honor  to  walk  into  the  Hatrium,  you'll 
remark  my  great  pictures  also  from  English  'istory.  An 
English  historical  painter,  sir,  should  be  employed  chiefly 
in  English  'istory.  That's  what  I  would  have  done.  Why 
ain't  there  temples  for  us  where  the  people  might  read 
their  history  at  a  glance  without  knowing  how  to  read  ? 
Why  is  my  Alfred  'anging  up  in  this  'all  ?  Because  there 
is  no  patronage  for  a  man  who  devotes  himself  to  Igh  Art.- 
You  know  the  anecdote,  Colonel.  King  Alfred  flying 
from  the  Danes  took  refuge  in  a  neaterd's  'ut.  The  rustic's 
wife  told  him  to  bake  a  cake,  and  the  fugitive  sovering  sat 
down  to  his  ignoble  task,  and,  forgetting  it  in  the  cares  of 
state,  let  the  cake  burn,  on  which  the  woman  struck  him. 
The  moment  chose  is  when  she  is  lifting  her  'and  to  deliver 
the  blow.  The  king  receives  it  with  majesty,  mingled  with 
meekness.  In  the  background  the  door  of  the  'ut  is  open, 
letting  in  the  royal  officers  to  announce  the  Danes  are 
defeated.  The  daylight  breaks  in  at  the  aperture,  signify- 
ing the  dawning  of  'Ope.  That  story,  sir,  which  I  found 
in  my  researches  in  'istory,  has  since  become  so  popular, 
s  r,  that  hundreds  of  artists  have  painted  it,  hundreds  !  I, 


The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society.        219 

who  discovered  the  legend,  have  my  picture  —  here  !"  In 
a  country  where  the  due  aspiration  of  the  letter  h  is  con- 
sidered the  indispensable  qualification  of  every  one  claim- 
ing the  rank  of  gentleman,  I  do  not  see  how  Mr.  Gandish 
could  ever  expect  to  be  recognized  as  one. 

It  is  observable  that,  whenever  Mr.  Thackeray  has  any 
thing  to  say  of  the  artistic  class,  it  is  always  to  leave  a 
strong  impression  on  the  reader's  mind  of  the  artist's 
social  nonentity.  The  memory  of  Becky  Sharp's  father, 
for  instance,  is  never  recalled  in  a  manner  favorable  to 
him,  his  drunkenness  or  his  poverty  being  the  character- 
istics by  one  or  other  of  which  he  is  roughly  hauled  before 
the  reader  from  time  to  time.  In  "  The  Newcomes  "  the 
only  supportable  artist  is  J.  J.  Ridley ;  but  in  an  aristo- 
cratic country  like  this,  people  don't  particularly  affect  the 
society  of  their  domestics  or  their  families,  and  it  is  there- 
fore a  considerable  obstacle  to  Mr.  Ridley's  social  success 
that  his  father  is  a  butler.  Gandish  is  an  ignorant  old 
goose,  and  Smee  one  of  the  meanest  of  toadies.  Clive 
Newcome  is  not  an  artist  at  all ;  but  if,  by  courtesy,  we 
count  him  as  one,  his  idleness  and  infirmity  of  purpose 
were  no  credit  to  that  profession  which  his  swell  manners 
adorned.  In  the  character  sketches  the  essay  entitled 
u  The  Artists  "  does  not  contain  one  single  portrait  agree- 
able enough  to  make  one  wish  *to  know  the  original  ;  and 
by  continually  exhibiting  poverty  and  meanness  on  the 
one  hand,  or  a  base  and  unworthy  success  on  the  other,  as 
the  opposite  poles  of  the  artistic  career,  the  writer  easily 
conveys  the  impression  that  the  career  is  in  itself  inevi- 
tably degrading.  But  this,  as  I  happen  to  know,  was  not 
Mr.  Thackeray's  own  private  opinion  at  all.  As  an  indi- 
vidual, Thackeray  loved  and  reverenced  our  art  to  a  de- 
gree that  no  one  would  believe  possible  who  knew  no  more 
about  him  than  is  to  be  gathered  from  his  published  works. 
It  is  as  a  satirist  only  that  he  laughs  at  the  brotherhood 
of-  the  brush,  and  the  brethren  of  that  order  are  no  worse 
off  than  any  other  order  of  men  of  whom  that  satirist 
treats.  Without,  therefore,  complaining  in  any  way  of 
this  rough  usage,  we  have  only  to  note  with  regard  to 


220        The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  /Society. 

Thackeray's  works,  considered  as  a  collection  of  studies 
from  life,  taken  by  one  who  scorns  the  artifice  of  flattery, 
that  the  artists  occupy  in  them  much  the  same  position, 
relatively  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  that  they  do  in  real 
life,  that  is  to  say  a  very  unsound  and  unsatisfactory 
position. 

In  "  St.  Ronan's  Well "  the  guests  at  the  table  d'hote 
cannot  believe  Tyrrell  to  be  a  professional  artist,  simply 
because  his  manners  are  good. 

"  I  doubt,  too,  if  he  is  a  professional  artist,"  said  Lady 
Binks.  "  If  so,  he  is  of  the  very  highest  class,  for  I  have 
seldom  seen  a  better-bred  man." 

"  There  are  very  well-bred  artists,"  said  Lady  Penelope  ; 
"  it  is  the  profession  of  a  gentleman." 

"  Certainly,"  answered  Lady  Binks,  "  but  the  poorer 
class  have  often  to  struggle  with  poverty  and  dependence. 
In  general  society  they  are  like  commercial  people  in  pres- 
ence of  their  customers,  and  that  is  a  difficult  part  to 
sustain.  And  so  you  see  them  of  all  sorts  —  shy  and 
reserved,  when  they  are  conscious  of  merit  —  petulant  and 
whimsical  by  way  of  showing  their  independence  —  intru- 
sive in  order  to  appear  easy  —  and  sometimes  obsequious 
and  fawning  when  they  chance  to  be  of  a  mean  spirit.  But 
you  seldom  see  them  quite  at  their  ease,  and  therefore  I 
hold  this  Mr.  Tyrrell  to  be  either  an  artist  of  the  first 
class,  raised  completely  above  the  necessity  and  degra- 
dation of  patronage,  or  else  to  be  no  professional  artist 
at  all." 

There  is  an  exquisite  touch  in  the  fifth  chapter,  which 
I  cannot  omit,  though  a  little  out  of  place.  Lady  Penel- 
ope, when  Tyrrell  avows  his  artistic  character,  "  had  to 
recede,"  says  Scott — and  mark  this,  for  it  is  thoroughly 
masterly  and  characteristic — "  from  the  respectful  and  easy 
footing  on  which  he  had  contrived  to  place  himself,  to  one 
which  might  express  patronage  on  her  own  part  and  de- 
pendence on  Tyrrell's,  and  this  could  not  be  done  in  a 
moment."  Sir  Walter  Scott  knew  nothing  of  painting, 
but,  of  course,  observed  closely  whatever  might  indicate 
the  social  estimate  of  art.  Sir  Walter  never  once  pene- 


The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society.        221 

trated  beyond  the  surface  of  the  artistic  nature,  and, 
though  a  great  artist  himself  in  his  work,  was  merely  a 
dilettante  in  feeling.  Still,  even  to  him,  who  had  no 
sympathy  whatever  with  painters,  it  was  plain  enough 
that  society,  in  his  day,  did  not  treat  them  on  terms  of 
equality. 

As  Scott  in  "  St.  Ronan's  Well,"  and  Thackeray  in  "  The 
Newcomes,"  have  illustrated  our  subject,  so  has  Charles 
Dickens  in  "  Little  Dorrit."  "•  Mr.  Henry  Gowan,  inher- 
iting from  his  father,  the  commissioner,  that  very  ques- 
tionable help  in  life,  a  very  small  independence,  had  been 
difficult  to  settle.  At  last  he  had  declared  that  he  would 
become  a  painter ;  partly  because  he  had  always  had  an 
idle  knack  that  way,  and  partly  to  grieve  the  souls  of  the 
Barnacles  in  chief  who  had  not  provided  for  him.  So  it 
came  to  pass  that  several  distinguished  ladies  had  been 
frightfully  shocked."  And  of  all  the  shocked  ladies, 
Gowan's  mother  was  shocked  the  most.  She  says  to 
Clennam,  "  Perhaps  you  have  heard  that  I  have  suffered 
the  keenest  distress  of  mind  from  Henry's  having  taken 
to  a  pursuit  which  —  well !  "  shrugging  her  shoulders,  "  a 
very  respectable  pursuit  I  dare  say,  and  some  artists  are, 
as  artists,  quite  superior  persons;  still,  we  never  yet  in 
our  family  have  gone  beyond  an  amateur,  and  it  is  a  par- 
donable weakness  to  feel  a  little  —  "  Here  Mrs.  Gowan 
sighed. 

A  very  clever  and  not  unfair  statement  of  the  causes  for 
the  peculiar  jealousy  with  which  the  rich  trading  class 
regards  cultivated  persons,  and,  above  all,  persons  artisti- 
cally cultivated,  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  an  intelligent 
man  of  business  by  Miss  Jewsbury,  in  her  masterly  novel, 
"The  Half-Sisters,"  a  novel,  by  the  way,  which  enters 
better  into  the  true  artist  feeling  than  any  other  I  know. 
I  have  never  seen  the  question  so  skilfully  handled  ;  in 
the  few  sentences  I  shall  quote,  considerations  are  taken 
into  account  which  would  altogether  escape  any  ordinary 
observer.  The  statement  that  authors  and  artists  have 
"  no  professional  or  business-like  habits  "  is  not  true,  as 
Mr.  Smiles  proved  in  his  "  Self-help ; "  but  it  is  perfectly 


222         The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society. 

well  placed,  dramatically,  in  the  mouth  of  a  mere  man  of 
business,  being  a  prejudice  common  to  his  class.  It  is  Mr. 
Bryant  who  speaks  first,  a  great  master-miner. 

"  Professional  people  live  in  a  world  of  their  own ;  and 
it  is  very  undesirable  that  they  should  be  introduced  into 
the  private  circles  of  the  middle  classes  ....  I  have  a 
singular  objection  to  meeting  with  authors,  actors,  artists, 
or  professional  people  of  any  sort,  except  in  the  peculiar 
exercise  of  their  vocation,  which  I  am  willing  to  pay  for. 
There  may  be  respectable  people  amongst  them,  but  they 
are  not  sufficient  to  give  a  coloring  to  the  class ;  and  as 
a  class,  there  is  a  want  of  stamina  about  them ;  they  have 
no  precision  or  business-like  habits,  the  absence  of  which 
leaves  an  opening  for  faults  with  very  ugly  names ;  and 
persons  whose  profession  it  is  to  amuse  others  and  make 
themselves  pleasing,  cannot,  in  the  nature  of  things,  expect 
to  take  a  very  high  position.  Men  cannot  feel  reverence 
or  respect  for  those  who  aspire  to  amuse  them !  " 

"  Well ! "  cried  Conrad,  laughing,  "  I  have  always  ob- 
served that  heavy,  sententious,  stupid  persons,  seem  to 
entertain  a  species  of  contempt  for  those  who  possess  the 
lighter  gifts  of  being  entertaining ;  but  I  never  heard  it 
made  into  a  theory  before.  To  leave  that  part  of  the 
question,  however,  let  me  ask  you  whether  you  consider 
that  the  province  of  those  who  profess  the  fine  arts  is  only 
to  amuse  ?  Do  you  think  that  they  have  gained  the  real 
end  of  their  labor  when  they  are  paid  for  what  they  do  ? 
and  do  you  consider  the  production  of  works  of  art  to  be 
a  mere  mode  of  earning  a  living  ?  " 

"  This  is  an  industrial  country,"  said  Bryant ;  "  the 
great  mass  of  sympathy  and  intellect  takes  a  practical 
direction,  —  a  direction  that  we  understand ;  we  have  no 
real  knowledge  of  art,  no  real  mstinct  or  genuine  aspira- 
tion after  it ;  and  I  should  say  that  in  our  hearts  we  do 
not  respect,  love,  or  honor  fine  art  in  any  of  its  manifes- 
tations, as  we  do  that  which  is  scientific  or  practical.  To 
the  Italians,  to  the  French  even,  music  and  pictures  are 
necessaries  of  life  ;  to  us  English  they  only  take  the  guise 
of  ornament  or  convenience,  —  of  superfluity,  in  short. 


The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society.        223 

That  being  the  case,  we  naturally  do  not  feel  drawn  to  the 
society  of  artists ;  we  have  nothing  in  common  with  them, 
—  we  do  not  admire  them  ;  neither  do  we  feel  disposed  to 
introduce  to  the  society  of  our  wives  and  daughters  a  parcel 
of  actors,  artists,  musicians,  and  so  forth,  who  have  no 
stake  in  society,  who  have  little  to  lose,  whose  capital  is 
all  invested  in  themselves  and  their  two  hands,  and  who 
have,  therefore,  naturally  cultivated  themselves  far  beyond 
what  we  practical  men  have  had  a  chance  of  doing,  and 
are  capable  of  throwing  us  into  the  shade  in  our  own 
houses,  whilst  they  show  that  they  despise  us.  Let  them 
keep  their  places,  and  let  us  keep  ours ! " 

"  But  do  you  allow  nothing  for  the  civilizing  influ- 
ence of  men  of  cultivated  intellect  amongst  you  ?  "  said 
Conrad. 

"  Railroads  will  do  more,"  replied  Bryant ;  "  every  peo- 
ple must  work  out  its  civilization  in  its  own  way.  Love 
of  the  fine  arts  is  not  our  speciality  :  we  do  not  know 
a  good  tiling  from  a  bad  one  unless  we  are  told;  and 
the  pretence  we  make  about  it  has  a  bad  effect  on  our 
character." 

Painters  are  not  very  often  alluded  to  by  our  poets, 
though  there  are  plenty  of  poems  abont  pictures,  of  which 
the  great  majority  are  trash.  The  only  bit  of  well-known 
verse  which  I  just  now  remember,  as  really  to  our  purpose, 
is  this  line  in  "  The  Lord  of  Burleigh  :  "  — 

He  is  but  a  landscape  painter. 

There  is,  however,  a  good  deal  in  that  little  word  but  — 
as  much  perhaps  as  in  all  I  have  quoted  from  Scott  and 
Thackeray.  For  instance,  if  I  were  to  say  of  Mr.  Teuny- 
Bon, 

He  is  but  a  poet-laureate, 

the  reader  would  at  once  infer  that  in  my  opinion  the  lau- 
reateship  was  not  a  great  office.  So  we  may  very  allow- 
ably conclude,  from  the  significant  employment  of  the  word 
but,  that  in  Mr.  Tennyson's  estimate  of  social  position  a 
landscape  painter  must  be  content  to  occupy  a  very  humble 
place. 


224        The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society. 

Oo  the  table  where  I  am  writing  there  happens  to  be  a 
book  of  travels  in  the  Highlands.  I  have  just  been  reading 
a  few  pages  about  Loch  Long,  and  have  come  upon  a  pas- 
sage about  sketching  from  Nature.  I  should  have  been  very 
much  astonished  if  the  art  could  have  been  alluded  to 
without  some  indication  of  contempt  for  its  professors,  and 
accordingly,  just  at  the  end  of  the  paragraph,  comes  a  bit 
of  disdain  which  is  quite  comic  in  its  conceit. 

"  As  I  was  amusing  myself  here  with  drawing  the  Cob- 
ler  amongst  a  crowd  of  herring-fishers,  one  of  them,  who 
had  been  very  intent  on  the  proceeding,  said,  when  it  was 
done,  '  I  wish  I  could  draw  like  you.'  I  remarked  that 
herring-fishing  was  a  better  trade.  '  I  canna  think  that/ 
was  the  reply.  I  assured  him  I  made  nothing  of  it. 
'  That 's  your  fault,'  said  the  fisherman  ;  *  if  I  could  draw 
like  you,  I  would  make  money  of  it.'  So  would  I,  were  I 
Parmenio." 

Now  this  is  exquisite.  So  WOULD  I,  WERE  I  PARME- 
NIO. What  majestic  words!  The  reader  will  be  quite 
curious  to  know  the  position  of  a  writer  who  thus  modestly 
mimics  the  sublime  vanity  of  Alexander.  In  this  little 
sentence  is  contained  a  whole  paragraph  of  pretension.  It 
says  quite  plainly,  "  My  position  in  society  is  so  exalted, 
that  in  comparison  with  such  men.  as  Reynolds*  and  Ru- 
bens,! I  am  as  the  conqueror  of  the  world  to  one  of  his 
generals  ;  "  or,  stated  like  a  question  in  the  Rule  of  Three, 
as  Alexander  was  to  Parmenio,  so  am  I  to  —  any  painter 
you  please.  Is  it  a  prince  who  speaks  thus  haughtily  ? 
I  turn  to  the  title-page,  and  find  that  the  book  was  writ- 
ten by  Dr.  Macculloch,  a  geologist. 

An  impression  prevails  in  England  that  artists  have  a 
better  position  in  France.  This  is  partly  true,  and  partly 
a  mistake.  From  what  I  have  seen,  personally,  across  the 
channel,  I  should  say  that  the  position  of  a  painter  in 


*  I  declare  I  think,  of  all  the  polite  men  of  that  age,  Joshua  Rey- 
nolds was  the  finest  gentleman.  —  JThackeray. 

f  Rubens  was  an  honorable  and  entirely  well-intentioned  man,  ear- 
nestly industrious,  simple  and  temperate  'in  habits  of  life,  high-bred, 
learned,  and  discreet.  —  Ruskin. 


The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society.        225 

France,  as  compared  with  his  position  here,  is,  on  the 
whole,  very  little  better,  except  after  fame  is  won,  and  then 
I  grant  that  no  place  in  Europe  is  pleasanter  for  an  artist 
than  Paris,  if  his  art  be  of  a  kind  that  the  Parisians  can 
understand.  I  remember  two  lines  in  UHonneur  et  V Ar- 
gent, which  indicate  very  well  the  position  of  a  great  artist 
in  France ;  but  I  also  remember  a  good  many  other  pas- 
sages, in  that  and  other  books,  which  indicate  with  equal 
clearness  the  national  contempt  for  the  artistic  aspirant,  or 
even  for  the  consummate  workman  whose  power  has  not  as 
yet  obtained  public  recognition.  The  two  lines  I  shall 
quote  first  are  spoken  by  a  charming  young  French  lady, 
excited  to  enthusiasm  by  a  disinterested  and  honorable 
action :  — 

"  C'est  plus  qu'un  grand  artiste,  et  plus  qu'un  grand  seigneur 
Plus  qu'un  homme  opulent ;  c'est  un  homme  d'honneur." 

Now  it  certainly  would  never  occur  to  an  English  girl  who 
happened  to  be  seeking  for  superlatives  of  human  great- 
ness by  comparison  with  which  to  exalt  a  man  she  ad- 
mired,—  it  would  occur,  I  say,  to  no  English  girl  to  put  a 
great  artist  and  a  great  nobleman  side  by  side  as  examples 
of  the  highest  human  dignities,  and  I  -consider  these  lines 
therefore  valuable  on  account  of  their  peculiarly  French 
view  of  the  matter. 

In  the  first  act  of  the  Fiammina,  too,  by  Mario  Uchard, 
there  is  a  charming  conversation  between  a  father  and  his 
son,  which  gives  an  agreeable  idea  of  the  successful  artist's 
life.  The  father,  "  Daniel  Lambert,"  is  a  celebrated 
painter ;  the  son,  a  young  poet.  It  is  to  be  regretted,  by 
the  way,  that  M.  Uchard  should  have  selected  that  par- 
ticular name  for  his  great  artist,  it  being  already  the  prop- 
erty of  a  celebrity  great  in  quite  another  sense.  Henri, 
the  son,  says  to  his  father :  — 

"  Tu  es  le  premier  peintre  du  temps ;  grace  a  toi  je  suis  riche, 
ton  nom  est  un  talisman  pour  moi,  il  me  souffle  du  bonheur  comme 
au  temps  des  fees ;  toutes  les  portes  s'ouvrent  devant  lui :  '  C'est  le 
fils  de  Daniel  Lambert,'  dit-on  sur  mon  passage,  et  Ton  te  fete  en 
moi,  je  suis  ton  clair  de  lune,  je  te  reflete." 

15 


226        The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society. 

DANIEL. 

Mais  tu  as  bien  tes  rayons  a  toi. 


Rayons  d'emprunt  .  .  .  Je  me  sens  bien  humble  devant  cette 
consideration  qui  me  vient  toute  de  toi,  et  me  reduit  a  rien.  Quand 
on  dit,  par  exemple  :  "  C'est  Lambert  le  fils,"  il  me  semble  que  ce 
mot  de  fils  est  place  la  comme  une  sentinelle  qui  crie  :  "  Halte-la  ! 
ne  confondez  pas  :  celui-ci  n'est  pas  le  celebre." 

It  is  also  observable  that  when  Lord  Dudley,  a  distin- 
guished English  "  patron,"  comes  to  see  Lambert,  his 
manner  is  any  thing  but  patronizing.  Lambert,  for  rea- 
sons I  cannot  stop  to  explain,  declines  the  commission 
Lord  Dudley  has  come  to  offer,  requesting  him  to  pardon 
the  refusal.  On  this  his  lordship  answers  :  — 

"  Je  ne  saurais  vous  en  vouloir,  monsieur ;  je  venais  en  sollici- 
teur,  et  je  n'ai  pas  perdu  ma  journee,  puisque  j'ai  eu  1'honneur  de 
vous  voir." 

Which  is  all  very  civil  and  polite. 

In  the  third  act  Henri  challenges  Lord  Dudley,  and  in 
the  course  of  their  conversation  I  find  an  expression 
which  we  have  met  with  elsewhere.  Henri  says,  page 
85:  — 

"  Je  pourrais  avoir  recours  k  un  de  ces  outrages  publics  qui  fer- 
ment toute  retraite,  mais  entre  gens  de  notre  monde,  un  tel  eclat 
ferait  rechercher  la  cause  de  mon  agression,  et  c'est  ce  que  je  veux 
evitera  tout  prix." 

The  expression  "  de  notre  monde,"  is  what  I  allude  to. 
We  have  already  met  with  it  in  a  letter  addressed  by  Miss 
Ethel  Newcome  to  her  uncle  the  Colonel,  in  which  she 
says  that  artists  are  not  "  de  notre  monde."  The  coinci- 
dence is  curious.  Here  we  have  the  son  of  a  French 
artist  talking  to  a  rich  English  lord  as  if  he  considered 
himself  in  every  way  his  lordship's  equal.  He  is,  how- 
ever, not  merely  the  son  of  a  painter,  but  of  a  very  famous 
one,  which,  in  France,  is  quite  as  good  as  a  patent  of 
nobility.  Yet,  when  I  have  granted  that  celebrated  artists 
are  respected  at  Paris,  I  cannot  admit  that  the  great  body 


The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society.        227 

of  painters  get  more  consideration  there  than  they  do 
here,  or  that  true  art  is  better  loved  for  itself  by  our 
neighbors  than  by  us. 

The  destruction  of  the  old  French  noblesse  has,  as 
everybody  knows,  given  a  character  to  French  society 
which  makes  it  less  than  ever  like  our  own.  There  are, 
however,  some  country  towns  in  Lancashire  and  the  West 
Riding  of  Yorkshire  where  a  new  society,  in  default  of 
hereditary  leaders  of  ancient  descent,  accepts  for  its  chief 
class  an  aristocracy  of  recent  origin  and  precarious  tenure, 
based  on  the  fluctuating  revenues  of  commerce.  The 
spirit  of  speculation  in  money  matters,  which  is  strong 
enough  in  these  towns  to  cause  great  vicissitudes  in 
families,  is  yet  more  powerful  at  Paris,  and  there  is  not  a 
place  in  Europe  where  the  effects  of  money  may  be  better 
studied  than  there.  Accordingly  much  labor  and  ability 
have  been  devoted  by  several  eminent  French  writers,  to 
the  analysis  of  money  power  in  its  relation  to  life  in  all  its 
forms  —  to  artistic  life  amongst  the  rest.  What  the  modern 
financial  aristocracy  of  France  thinks  of  artists  we  will 
try  to  gather  from  Ponsard  and  others.  Balzac  and  Ed- 
mond  About  will  tell  us  what  the  vulgar  bourgeoisie 
thinks.  As  for  what  the  old  noblesse  thought  on  the 
subject,  that  is  quite  simple,  and  need  not  detain  us ;  it 
looked  on  all  artists  as  handicraftsmen,  and  therefore  con- 
temptible. 

Since  the  days  of  Horace  the  world  has  regarded  with 
suspicion  the  praises  of  critics  who  have  just  plentifully 
feasted  at  a  poet's  table,  and  Horace's  satire  is  no  less 
applicable  to  the  case  of  painters.  Dilettantes  are,  how- 
ever, much  more  likely  than  artists  to  become  the  victims 
of  these  post-prandial  eulogies,  partly,  perhaps,  because 
artists  do  not  give  so  many  dinners  as  dilletantes,  but 
mainly  because  true  artists  cannot  bear  to  hear  themselves 
praised  by  ignorant  "  connoisseurs  "  (who  are  always  icily 
indifferent  to  the  peculiar  excellencies  of  individual  artists, 
and  who,  when  they  praise,  cause  the  keenest  suffering 
their  feebleness  is  capable  of  inflicting),  and  wise  painters 
therefore  most  carefully  avoid  showing  their  work  to  mis- 


228        The  Painter  in  his  ^Relation  to  Society. 

cellaneous  company.  But  you  can  never  dine  with  a 
thorough  dilletante  without  having  to  look  at  his  sketches. 
The  first  scene  in  that  immortal  comedy  of  Ponsard, 
"  L'ffonneur  et  f  Argent"  is  of  this  familiar  kind.  Alas, 
how  many  times  have  we  not  all  passed  through  similar 
ordeals ! 

The  best  bit  here  is  what  the  statesman  says  :  — 

"  It 's  pretty  and  good.  I  believe  you  paint  very  well. 
But  leave  all  that,  George,  to  those  who  have  nothing.  A 
poor  hungry  devil  without  a  half-penny  may  daub  well  or 
ill  a  few  canvases  to  get  his  living,  —  I  don't  blame  him 
for  it,  —  though  he  might,  in  my  opinion,  find  a  better  use 
for  a  piece  of  good  canvas.  But  you,  rich  and  honored, 
whom  people  seek  after  and  are  delighted  to  receive,  —  we 
must  put  other  projects  into  your  head." 

The  reader  will  perceive  that  this  bears  a  wonderful 
resemblance  to  what  Clive  Newcome's  friends  used  to  say 
to  him.  It  sounds  like  Mr.  Honeyman,  though  that 
divine  would  scarcely  have  put  the  matter  so  forcibly  as 
the  statesman  does.  Why  art  should  only  be  pursued  by 
penniless  persons  I  do  not  clearly  see ;  on  the  contrary, 
artists  seldom  do  any  thing  great  until  they  cease  to  be 
penniless,  and  art  is,  of  all  professions,  the  one  where 
private  fortune  is  most  desirable  and  useful.  The  views  of 
the  statesman,  however,  and  indeed  of  the  majority  of  men 
who  think  themselves  and  their  doings  of  much  importance 
to  the  world,  may  be  more  nakedly  expressed  thus : 
"  Painting  is  a  foolish  and  trifling  occupation,  which,  like 
standing  on  one's  head  in  the  street  for  chance  half-pence, 
may  yet  be  pardoned  in  a  man  who  is  compelled  to  degrade 
himself  by  sheer  hunger ;  but  in  a  man  of  fortune,  to 
whom  all  careers  are  open,  the  choice  of  such  a  low  trade 
is  unpardonable."  I  believe  this  to  be  a  very  just  and  not 
exaggerated  statement  of  the  opinion  of  society  on  this 
question,  both  here  and  on  the  Continent. 

You  may  sometimes  change  the  color  of  a  conversation 
by  dropping  this  word  "  painter  "  into  -it,  just  as  suddenly 
as  a  chemist  will  change  the  color  of  a  fluid  by  dropping 
something  into  it  from  another  phial.  I  have  done  it 


The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society.        229 

sometimes  for  amusement,  and  seen  lively  people  become 
reserved,  and  courteous  people  stiff,  with  a  rapidity  quite 
magical.  So  the  authors  of  "  Les  Faux  Bonshommes  "  are 
quite  right  in  putting  the  two  little  words  avec  dedain 
for  the  actor's  guidance. 

PEPONET. 
II  est  peintre. 

VERTILLAC,  avec  dtidoin. 
Ah! 

Then  later  in  the  same  conversation,  after  Peponet  has 
disclosed  the  name  of  his  intended  son-in-law,  and  Vertil- 
lac  has  sworn  that  Octave  shall  not  have  a  penny  of  his, 
poor  Peponet  cries  out,  — 

Oh !  mais  voilk  qui  change  terriblement  les  choses  ! 

VERTILLAC. 

Pourquoi  ?  puisque  vous  croyez  k  1'avenir  de  monsieur  Octave  ? 

PEPONET. 

tin  avenir  d'artiste  !  .  .  .  Je  suis  votre  serviteur ! 

You  see  Peponet  has  no  great  faith  in  an  artist's  expec- 
tations when  his  rich  uncle  abandons  him.  So  Peponet 
breaks  off  Octave's  marriage  with  poor  Emmeline,  and 
Mademoiselle  Eugenie  is  not  sorry. 

C'est  egal,  ma  soeur  n'ira  pas  en  omnibus. 

Such  is  the  young  lady's  prudent  reflection  on  this  cir- 
cumstance. 

Octave,  however,  marries  Emmeline  after  all,  at  last,  and 
succeeds  in  his  art,  and  gets  the  ribband  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor.  Then  he  has  no  further  need  of  the  services  of 
Monsieur  Vertillac  ;  so,  of  course,  Vertillac  comes  and 
reconciles  himself  with  his  nephew.  As  a  true  man  of  the 
world,  he  could  do  no  less.  The  first  rule  in  the  world's 
ethics  is  to  remember  the  fortunate  and  successful,  and  to 
treat  them  with  tenderness. 

In  Balzac's  Menage  de  Garcon  we  find  as  a  marked 
characteristic  of  the  people  we  meet,  a  characteristic 
to  which  Balzac  frequently  draws  our  attention  him- 


230        The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society. 

self,  that  they  cannot  understand  a  painter  and  that  they 
do  not  respect  him.  Joseph's  own  mother  even,  the 
object  of  his  continual  filial  love  and  solicitude,  cannot 
consider  him  any  thing  else  than  a  disgrace  to  her,  and  the 
crimes  of  her  elder  son  weaken  her  affection  less  than  the 
innocent  pursuits  of  this.  She  and  her  friend  Madame 
Descoings  think  of  art  "  only  as  a  trade."  Philip  himself 
despises  and  affects  to  patronize  Joseph.  When  Joseph 
goes  to  Issoudun,  the  people  there  cannot  make  him  out 
at  all,  and  dislike  him  extremely.  Hochon  sneers  at  his 
art.  Joseph's  mother  presents  him  to  these  friends  with  a 
tone  and  manner  which  imply  how  little  she  loves  him  or 
respects  his  calling.  Rouget  tells  him  he  may  have  the 
pictures  "  if  they  can  be  of  any  use  to  him  in  his  trade." 
Balzac,  I  fear,  is  no  more  encouraging  than  Thackeray  ;  at 
the  same  time,  Balzac  shows  how  he  himself  loves  artists, 
by  describing  the  artistic  nature  with  such  tenderness  and 
kind  feeling.  The  character  of  Joseph  Bridau  is  one  of  the 
purest  and  noblest  in  French  fiction.  Simple,  generous, 
affectionate,  a  good  son,  a  forgiving  brother,  an  unselfish  and 
high-principled  man  of  genius,  he  is  no  unworthy  ideal  of 
the  artistic  nature.  So  in  the  "  Newcomes,"  poor  J.  J.  is  the 
gentlest,  the  humblest,  and  the  most  inoffensive  creature  in 
the  whole  book.  Very  little  is  said  of  him,  but  every  time  he 
is  mentioned  you  see  that  in  that  little  pale  and  deformed 
lad  dwells  a  heavenly  soul ;  and  Thackeray  never  rises 
into  such  pure  .strains  of  eloquence,  never  so  willingly  lays 
aside  his  lancet  of  satire,  as  when  he  speaks  of  the  butler's 
boy.  In  all  others,  even  in  the  good  colonel,  he  has  follies 
to  ridicule  or  cloaked  sins  to  reveal ;  but  this  guileless  and 
meek  heart  is  too  holy  for  dissection.  "  Whenever  you 
found  him  he  seemed  watchful  and  serene,  his  modest 
virgin  lamp  always  lighted  and  trim.  No  gusts  of  passion 
extinguished  it,  no  hopeless  wandering  in  the  darkness 
afterwards  led  him  astray.  Wayfarers  in  the  world,  we 
meet  now  and  then  with  such  purity,  and  hush  while  it 
passes  on." 

We  painters  ought  to  feel  grateful  to  these  two  great 
novelists,  for,  however  faithfully  they  have  described  the 


The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society.       231 

world's  contempt  for  the  painter,  they  have  with  equal 
clearness  courageously  disclaimed  all  participation  in  it. 
There  is,  indeed,  and  must  ever  be,  strong  sympathy 
between  true  artists,  though  in  different  realms  of  art; 
and  some  who  work  in  words,  like  Balzac  and  Thackeray, 
can  comprehend  and  esteem,  and  also,  it  appears,  even 
respect,  others  who  express  themselves  by  the  less  gener- 
ally understood  medium  of  colors. 

M.  Edmond  About,  in  the  clever  " Manages  de  Paris" 
gives  us  the  history  of  a  successful  young  painter  who 
wants  to  marry  the  daughter  of  a  rich  bourgeois.  The 
property  of  the  girl's  father  consisting  in  building  lots,  the 
story  is  entitled  "  Terrains  a  vendre." 

After  a  long  speech  from  the  painter  to  his  intended 
father-in-law,  in  which,  as  is  the  wont  of  young  gentlemen 
with  similar  views,  he  temptingly  dwells  on  the  hopeful 
state  of  affairs,  he  pauses  for  once  to  take  breath,  and  then 
adds  .  .  .  "  *  Je  ne  sais,  monsieur,  si  je  me  suis  fait  com- 
prendre.  .  .  / 

"  *  Oui,  monsieur/  re*pondit  M.  Gaillard,  *  et,  tout  art- 
iste que  vous  etes,  vous  m'avez  1'air  d'uii  bien  honnete 
homme.'  , 

"  Henri  Tourneur  rougit  jusqu'au  blanc  des  yeux. 

"  *  Excusez-moi,'  reprit  vivement  le  bonhomme  ;  4  je  ne 
veux  pas  dire  de  mal  des  artistes :  je  ne  les  connais  pas. 
Je  youlais  simplement  vous  faire  entendre  que  vous  raison- 
nez  comme  un  homme  d'ordre,  un  employe,  un  uegociant, 
un  notaire,  et  que  vous  ne  professez  point  la  morale  cava- 
liere  des  gens  de  votre  etat.  Du  reste,  vous  etes  fort  bien 
de  votre  personne,  et  je  crois  que  vous  plairiez  a  ma  fille  si 
elle  vous  voyait  souvent.  Elle  a  toujours  eu  un  gout  pro- 
nonce  pour  la  peinture,  la  musique,  la  broderie  et  tous 
ces  petits  talents  de  societe.' "  A  little  farther  on,  he 
says,  "  Vous  me  dites  que  vous  gagnez  des  montagnes 
d'or,  et  je  vous  crois,  bien  qu'il  me  semble  assez  extraor- 
dinaire qu'un  seul  homme  puisse  fabriquer  pour  quatre- 
vingt  mille  francs  de  tableaux  en  dix-huit  mois." 

This  is  all  very  good,  especially  the  sentence  where  the 
bourgeois  says  that  his  daughter  has  always  had  a  strong 


232        The  Painter  in  his  Eelation  to  Society. 

taste  for  painting,  and  music,  and  embroidery,  and  all  those 
little  "  talents  de  societe" 

I  think  I  have  quoted  enough  to  prove  my  point.  First 
of  all,  I  said  that  men  respected  only  power,  and  did  not 
respect  artists  because  they  were  not  powerful.  Then  I 
had  to  prove  that  they  did  not  respect  artists,  and  so 
called  a  few  witnesses  who  happened  to  be  at  hand.  I  do 
not  want  to  weary  the  jury,  and  so  shall  call  no  more  wit- 
nesses. There  is  no  need. 

We  cannot  have  the  external  force  of  organized  bodies 
without  their  internal  restrictions.  And  it  would  demand 
the  most  profound  wisdom  to  organize  such  persons  as 
artists,  so  as  neither  to  impose  a  single  needless  restric- 
tion, nor  omit  a  necessary  one.  A  soldier  or  priest,  if 
asked  to  organize  us,  would  hedge  us  round  with  a 
hundred  observances  in  no  way  conducive  to  the  objects 
of  our  association,  and  obstacles  to  individual  advance- 
ment. Better  our  present  inorganic  confusion  than  such 
a  soulless  order  !  We  are  like  the  sands  of  the  sea  — 
bad  material  to  make  ropes  of,  yet  rich  with  inestimable 
treasure.  You  may  search  amongst  it  if  you  will,  and  find 
the  scattered  gems.  But  who^shall  build  all  these  loose 
stones  together  into  strength,  and  still  not  hide  a  single 
precious  one  ? 

It  is  a  necessity  and  not  a  defect  of  great  organizations, 
that  the  caprice  of  the  individual  should  be  restrained 
by  an  overpowering  conventionalism.  Organization  al- 
ways infers  discipline.  And  discipline  rules  even  the 
most  trivial  minutiae.  Being  the  opposite  of  individualism, 
it  hisses  and  boils  with  rage  when  it  detects  the  presence 
of  the  hostile  element,  as  an  alkaline  solution  effervesces 
when  an  acid  one  is  poured  into  it.  Even  in  such  trifles 
as  the  dressing  of  the  hair,  discipline  descends  to  the 
minutest  details  all  the  world  over,  for  it  is  its  nature 
to  extirpate  the  individualism  even  of  wayward  locks. 
The  nobility  of  discipline  is  that  it  sacrifices  the  single 
will  to  the  common  aim,  and,  repressing  private  diversi- 
ties, replaces  them  by  public  union. 

Now  the  arts  repose  naturally  on  individualism.     What 


The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society.        233 

is  most  precious  in  every  work  of  art  is  the  human  spirit 
that  produced  it.  Individual  diversities  cannot  here  be 
suppressed ;  on  the  contrary,  they  must  be  guarded  with 
jealous  care.  And  there  is  a  certain  art  power,  especially 
in  landscape,  which  can  only  be  reached  in  loneliness  and 
isolation. 

Again,  every  powerful  organization  requires  a  hier- 
archy. But  since  artistic  greatness  is  a  gift  of  nature, 
and  not  an  external  distinction,  which  a  king  can  give,  it 
follows  that  there  might  easily  be  a  damaging  discre- 
pancy between  the  hierarchic  rank  of  the  artist  and  his 
artistic  rank.  Indeed,  this  discrepancy  already  exists. 
Callcott  was  knighted  and  not  Turner ;  but  no  sovereign 
could  make  Callcott  greater  than  Turner. 

This  individualism  of  art  is  its  greatest  social  draw- 
back, because  it  deprives  artists  of  a  certain  ground  of 
sympathy  with  a  disciplined  society.  Military  life,  being 
organized  and  disciplined,  trains  men  for  society,  which 
has  also  an  organization  and  a  discipline;  whereas,  art 
develops  those  qualities  most  which  society  likes  least,  — 
qualities,  indeed,  which  have  a  decided  tendency  to  unfit 
men  for  society. 

Again,  this  individualism  is,  socially,  weakness.  So 
long  as  the  world  endures,  the  men  who  can  band  them- 
selves together  will  be  stronger  and  more  respected  than 
those  who  cannot  cohere.  Priests  laugh  at  independent 
thinkers,  and  call  them  a  rope  of  sand :  the  Cardinals 
will  ever  bully  a  lonely  Galileo.  Every  ensign  is  pro- 
tected by  the  proud  will  of  a  hundred  legions.  The 
inventor  is  utterly  unsupported,  till  he  has  made  himself 
famous,  and  gathered  round  him  a  private  bodyguard  of 
determined  defenders.  It  is  by  association  that  classes 
of  men  compel  respect,  but  alas  for  the  original  man  who 
can  find  no  associates ! 

And  this,  though  generally  true  of  all  branches  of 
our  art,  is  pre-eminently  so  of  landscape.  There  have 
been  great  schools  of  the  figure,  such  as  those  of  Raphael 
and  Rubens,  where  a  train  of  pupils  and  imitators  fol- 
lowed the  great  master  as  courtiers  follow  a  Prince,  but 


234        The  Painter  in  his  ^Relation  to  Society. 

the  chief  of  landscape  painters  was  the  loneliest  of  men. 
Landscape  painting  has  hitherto  been  the  most  unsocial 
of  all  professions.  I  know  of  no  employment  to  be  com- 
pared to  it,  in  this  respect,  but  that  of  watching  in  a 
light-house.  Yet  even  these  watchers  are  appointed  by 
threes  to  trim  the  lamps  in  those  stormy  towers  ;  but  .the 
painter  watches  the  waves  alone.  For  his  art  is  singu- 
larly isolating  by  the  very  conditions  of  success  in  it.  It 
loves  desert  places ;  its  truest  votaries  are  pilgrims,  and 
vagabonds,  and  mountain  anchorites.  I  can  understand 
that,  to  persons  whose  degree  of  culture  does  not  permit 
them  to  read  his  motives,  a  true  student  of  nature  must 
appear  a  very  sulky  eremite  indeed.  Who,  for  example, 
that  had  a  genial,  friendly  heart  in  his  breast,  would  play 
such  freaks  as  mine  ?  It  is  evident  that  I  am  a  miserable, 
sulky  fellow.  What  sociable  being  would  ever  have  lived 
by  himself  in  a  little  hut  on  the  moors,  like  the  Black 
Dwarf,  and  your  humble  servant.  ?  And  these  wild 
follies,  this  playing  at  Robinson  Crusoe,  this  pitching  of 
tents  on  desolate  mountains  and  uninhabited  islands,  this 
sailing  by  day  and  by  night  over  lonely  lakes,  —  what  is 
it  all  but  the  wretched  restlessness  of  a  misanthropist? 
A  few,  perhaps,  may  understand  that  although  the  studies 
of  the  landscape  painter  lead  him  into  solitude,  his  heart 
is  still  human,  and  that  if  he  has  few  companions,  it  is 
rather  because  they  do  not  relish  his  hard  fare,  than  that 
his  tents  are  without  hospitality,  and  his  tabernacles  closed 
to  the  friendly  guest. 

On  looking  back  upon  all  I  have  said  in  this  essay 
on  the  subject  of  the  relation  of  painter^  to  society,  I 
think  it  very  probable  that  the  reader  may  have  won- 
dered ere  this  whether  anybody  is  to  be  found  so 
eccentric  as  to  respect  these  pariahs.  Yes,  a  few  such 
persons  are  to  be  found  —  they  even  form  a  class,  though 
a  small  one,  and  every  member  of  this  little  body  is 
recognizable  in  an  instant  by  a  true  artist.  The  class, 
I  repeat,  is  a  small  one  —  so  small,  as  scarcely  to  have 
an  appreciable  influence  in  general  society,  though  I 
hope  that  it  may  one  day  have  influence  even  there. 


The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society.        235 

And  who  belong  to  this  exceptional  class  ? 

All  who  comprehend  art,  or  can  feel  its  power ;  and 
these  only. 

This  rule  is  universal.  I  have  never  met  with  a 
person  who  knew  good  work  from  bad,  and  did  not 
profoundly  respect  all  true  artists.  People  generally  pre- 
tend to  separate  their  (affected)  love  of  art  from  their 
(sincere)  contempt  for  the  artist ;  but  no  such  separation 
of  sentiment  is  possible,  and  all  that  this  ever  means  is, 
that  the  love  of  art  which  such  people  profess  is  hypocrisy, 
whilst  their  scorn  of  the  artist  is  all  sincerity.  True 
lovers  of  art  of  course  feel  no  respect  for  false  or  inca- 
pable workmen  ;  but  we  are  not  considering  here  any 
question  having  reference  to  the  capacity  of  individual 
workmen,  and  the  reader  will  remember  that,  at  the  very 
outset,  we  began  with  Plutarch's  contempt  for  Phidias, 
who,  so  far  from  being  false  or  incapable,  was  the  chief 
of  Greek  artists  and  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  time.  But 
this  rule  is  infallible,  that,  whoever  comprehends  art  re- 
spects all  true  artists,  and  whoever  despises  a  true  artist  is 
sure  to  be  ignorant  of  art. 

In  all  good  fiction,  those  persons  who  are  represented 
as  holding  painters  in  contempt  are  also  of  necessity 
represented  as  being  at  the  same  time  ignorant  of  art. 
Thus  Thackeray  says  of  Honeyman :  "  But  Honeyman 
knew  no  more  of  the  subject,  than  a  deaf  and  dumb  man 
knows  of  music.  He  could  talk  the  art  cant  very  glibly, 
and  had  a  set  of  Morghens  and  Madonnas  as  became  a 
clergyman  and  a  man  of  taste ;  but  he  saw  not  with  eyes 
such  as  those  wherewith  Heaven  had  endowed  the  humble 
little  butler's  boy,  to  whom  splendors  of  Nature  were 
revealed,  to  vulgar  sights  invisible,  and  beauties  manifest  in 
forms,  colors,  shadows  of  common  objects,  where  most  of  the 
world  saw  only  what  was  dull,  and  gross,  and  familiar." 

It  is  necessary  to  have  read  "  The  Newcomes "  atten- 
tively to  have  a  definite  idea  of  Colonel  Newcome's  views 
as  to  art  and  artists.  He  is  very  civil  and  courteous  to 
Gandish  and  Smee,  and  lets  his  son  be  an  artist  without 
opposition.  Still,  Colonel  Newcome  would  not  have  been 


236        The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society. 

exactly  the  "  gentleman "  he  is  intended  to  be,  had  he 
seriously  ranked  art  along  with  other  manly  pursuits. 
He  belongs  to.  the  large  class,  who,  without  despising 
artists  as  necessarily  base  or  ignoble,  treat  them  kindly 
and  consider  them  very  good  people,  but  frivolous,  and 
occupied,  not  in  a  very  mean  pursuit,  but  in  a  trifling 
one.  It  is  obvious  that,  with  such  views,  Colonel  New- 
come  would  be  kind,  in  a  somewhat  condescending  way, 
to  our  friends  Gandish  and  Smee,  and  would  even  allow 
his  son  full  liberty  to  pursue  his  art,  as  an  amusement, 
which  was  the  light  in  which  the  colonel  always  regarded 
it.  But  when,  the  colonel's  great  banking  speculation  is 
at  its  height,  and  Clive  still  tries  to  pursue  his  art,  the 
colonel  cannot  see  without  bitterness  that  this  boyish 
pastime  of  painting  interferes  with  the  serious  duties  of 
Olive's  position  as  the  son  of  a  speculator.  It  is  a  vexa- 
tion to  the  colonel  when  Clive  goes  to  his  painting-room, 
puts  on  his  old  velvet  jacket,  and  works  with  his  palette 
and  brushes.  "  Palettes  and  brushes  !  Could  he  not  give 
up  those  toys  when  he  was  called  to  a  much  higher  station 
in  the  world  ?  " 

This  gentlemanly  degree  of  contempt  for  art  and  its 
professors,  which,  however,  is  by  no  means  excessive,  not 
being  either  haughty  or  insolent,  or  even  unkind,  is  yet 
thus  severely  accounted  for  by  the  satirist :  — 

"The  world  enters  into  the  artist's  studio,  and  scorn- 
fully bids  him  a  price  for  his  genius,  or  makes  dull  pre- 
tence to  admire  it.  What  know  you  of  his  art  ?  You  cannot 
read  the  alphabet  of  that  sacred  look,  good  old  Thomas 
Newcome  I  What  can  you  tell  of  its  glories,  joys,  secrets, 
consolations  ?  " 

The  reader  will  observe  in  the  words  I  have  italicised 
a  strong  confirmation  of  my  argument  that  scorn  of  the 
artist  is  never  accompanied  by  real  admiration  for  his  art, 
only  by  a  dull  pretence  at  admiration.  Thackeray  cannot 
help  reiterating  this  great  truth ;  and  in  this  passage  it  is 
stated  in  as  direct  a  manner  as  a  novelist  usually  employs. 

I  have  quoted  a  striking  paragraph  from  "Modern 
Painters,"  in  which  Mr.  Ruskin  expresses  some  of  the 


The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society.        237 

feelings  with  which  he  looks  on  the  great  masterpieces. 
This  is  the  way  Colonel  Newcome  looked  at  them :  — 

"  But  what  was  all  this  rapture  about  a  snuffy  brown 
picture  called  Titian,  this  delight  in  three  flabby  nymphs 
by  Rubens,  and  so  forth?  As  for  the  vaunted  antique, 
and  the  Elgin  marbles  —  it  might  be  that  that  battered 
torso  was  a  miracle,  and  that  broken-nosed  bust  a  perfect 
beauty.  He  tried  and  tried  to  see  what  they  were.  He 
went  away  privily,  and  worked  at  the  National  Gallery 
with  a  catalogue ;  and  passed  hours  in  the  Museum  before 
the  ancient  statues,  desperately  praying  to  comprehend 
them,  and  puzzled  before  them,  as  he  remembered  he 
was  puzzled  before  the  Greek  rudiments  as  a  child,  when 
he  cried  over  6  x«J  TJ  dkqOrjg,  xeu  TO  dfajdeg." 

And  so  Colonel  Newcome's  contempt  for  the  pursuit  of 
art  is  quite  satisfactorily  accounted  for. 

In  like  manner  Balzac  makes  Rouget  ignorant  of  the 
value  of  his  own  pictures,  and  indicates  how  little  Philippe 
Bridau  knew  of  the  matter,  by  making  him  steal  a  copy, 
mistaking  it  for  the  original.  But  it  is  Agatha,  the  mother, 
whose  ignorance  is  most  dwelt  upon,  even  in  the  last  touch- 
ing scenes,  justly,  and  with  profound  artistic  truth ;  for  her 
contempt  for  art  is  one  of  her  most  strongly  marked  char- 
acteristics throughout  the  book.  So,  on  her  very  death- 
bed, when  she  repents  of  her  conduct  to  Joseph,  he  says 
to  her,  "  Est-ce  que  tu  n'es  pas  la  douce  et  Pindulgente 
compagne  de  ma  vie  miserable  ?  Tu  ne  comprends  pas  la 
peinture?  .  .  .  Eh !  mais  ca  ne  se  donne pas"  And  later, 
one  evening,  looking  at  a  picture,  she  exclaims  aloud, 
"  Oh,  commeje  voudrais  savoir  ce  que  c'est  que  la  couleur  !  " 

Nor  have  the  novelists  failed  to  enforce  the  other  half 
of  the  argument.  Just  as  the  ignorant  people  always 
despise  artists,  so  the  better  informed  ones  respect  them. 
Colonel  Newcome  and  Honeyman  may  despise  poor  J.  J., 
but  Clive  Newcome  does  not ;  for  Thackeray,  having 
represented  him  as  naturally  alive  to  art,  and  as  also 
possessing  sorre  acquired  knowledge  of  the  subject,  could 
never  have  made  him  despise  a  true  artist  like  J.  J.,  not- 
withstanding his  humble  birth.  Clive  writes  in  a  letter : 


238        The  Painter  in  his  Relation  to  Society. 

"Our  friend  J.  J.,  very  different  to  myself  in  so  many 
respects,  so  superior  in  all,"  &c. ;  and  afterwards,  speak- 
ing to  Pendennis  of  his  father  and  his  wife,  he  says : 
"  But  they  neither  understand  me,  don't  you  see  ?  The 
Colonel  can't  help  thinking  I  am  a  degraded  being, 
because  I  am  fond  of  painting.  Still,  dear  old  boy, 
he  patronizes  Ridley ;  a  man  of  genius,  whom  those 
sentries  ought  to  salute,  by  Jove,  sir,  when  he  passes. 
Ridley  patronized  by  an  old  officer  of  Indian  dragoons, 
a  little  bit  of  a  Rosey,  and  a  fellow  who  is  not  fit  to 
lay  his  palette  for  him !  I  want  sometimes  to  ask  J.  J.'s 
pardon  after  the  Colonel  has  been  talking  to  him  in 
his  confounded*  condescending  way,  uttering  some  awful 
bosh  about  the  fine  arts.  Rosey  follows  him,  and  trips 
round  J.  J.'s  studio,  and  pretends  to  admire,  and  says, 
'  How  soft,  how  sweet ; '  recalling  some  of  mamma-in-law's 
dreadful  expressions,  which  make  me  shudder  when  I 
hear  them." 

And  if  we  turn  to  real  persons,  with  what  veneration 
does  a  certain  Oxford  graduate  speak  of  the  barber's  son ! 
If  Mr.  Ruskin  had  not  understood  art,  would  he  have 
respected  Turner  as  he  did?  In  all  probability  not. 
Learned,  he  would  have  despised  Turner  as  illiterate ; 
refined,  he  would  have  disliked  his  rough  manners ;  re- 
ligious, he  could  never  have  borne  with  his  unbelief. 
RuSkin's  veneration  for  Turner  results  entirety  from  his 
knowledge  of  art. 

And  so  we  come  back  to  our  theory  of  respect.  It  is 
power,  power,  always  POWER  that  commands  the  respect 
of  men  ;  for  power  is  always  respected  when  it  is  recog- 
nized. When  people,  guilty  of  no  evident  crime,  do  not 
happen  to  be  respected,  it  may  mean,  either  that  they 
have  no  power,  or  that  their  power  is  as  yet  unrecognized. 
And  the  power  of  artists  is  of  so  subtle  a  nature,  that  very 
few  indeed  can  ever  detect  its  presence,  far  less  be  appalled 
and  awe-stricken  by  its  manifestations. 


Picture  Buying.  239 

XII. 
PICTURE  BUYING. 

A  TRUTH  bitter  to  all  men  who  live  by  the  exercise 
£•*'  of  their  talents  is  the  supremacy  of  money  over 
talent,  and  the  power  of  mere  gold  to  enslave  the  finest 
and  most  delicate  intelligences.  It  is  useless  to  endeavor 
to  evade  or  deny  this  fact,  and  it  always  seems  to  me  that 
the  position  of  talent  in  the  world  would  be  sounder  if  its 
real  relation  to  capital  were  thoroughly  and  universally 
understood.  Why  not  admit  frankly,  if  the  fact  is  indeed 
so,  that  the  purse  is  the  master  and  the  brain  the  slave  ? 
Our  philosophy  ought  to  be  able  to  face  any  fact,  however 
unpleasant. 

The  simple  truth  is,  that  capital  is  the  nurse  and  gov- 
erness of  the  arts  ;  not  always  a  very  wise  or  judicious 
nurse,  but  an  exceedingly  powerful  one.  And  in  the  rela- 
tion of  money  to  art,  the  man  who  has  money  will  rule 
the  man  who  has  art,  unless  the  artist  has  money  enough 
to  enable  him  to  resist  the  money  of  the  buyer.  For 
money  alone  is  powerful  enough  to  resist  money,  and 
starving  men  are  weak. 

But  for  capital  to  support  the  fine  art?,  it  must  be  abun- 
dant —  there  must  be  superfluity.  The  senses  will  first  be 
gratified  to  the  full  before  the  wants  of  the  intellect  awaken. 
Plenty  of  good  meat  and  drink  is  the  first  desire  of  the 
young  capitalist  ;  then  he  must  satisfy  the  ardors  of  the 
chase.  One  or  two  generations  will  be  happy  with  these 
primitive  enjoyments  of  eating  and  slaying  ;  but  a  day  will 
come  when  the  descendant  and  heir  of  these  will  awake 
into  life  with  larger  wants.  He  will  take  to  reading  in  a 
book,  he  will  covet  the  possession  of  a  picture  ;  and  unless 
there  are  plenty  of  such  men  as  he  in  a  country,  there  is 
but  a  poor  chance  there  for  the  fine  arts.  .,-r"  " 


240  Picture  Buying. 

The  desire  for  art  being  one  of  our  higher  appetites,  and 
the  desire  for  noble  art  the  very  highest  of  them  all,  it  is 
of  late  development,  and  feeble  in  its  first  manifestations ; 
according  to  the  well-known  law,  that  the  successive  de- 
velopment of  human  desires  is  also  progressive— that  is, 
from  lower  desires  to  higher. 

The  first  desire  for  art  appears  to  be  always  for  por- 
traiture, and  generally  portraiture  of  self  and  self's  wife. 
Certainly  there  is  no  subject  in  the  world  more  interest- 
ing to  a  man  than  himself,  unless  it  be  his  wife ;  but  these 
two  subjects  may  not  always  be  quite  so  delightful  to  all 
the  acquaintances  of  the  happy  pair,  especially  considering 
that  they  can. look  at  the  originals,  if  their  eyes  desire 
that  satisfaction.  The  love  of  portrait  is  a  vulgar  form  of 
egotism  so  long  as  it  is  confined  to  the  conjugal  canvases 
which  are  so  frequently  to  be  seen  in  this  domestic  coun- 
try, hanging  in  stately  gilt  frames,  over  highly  polished 
mahogany  sideboards.  But  when  this  love  of  portrait 
extends  itself  to  one's  friends  it  becomes  more  respectable, 
and  it  speaks  well  for  a  man's  capacity  for  friendship  if  he 
has  a  little  gallery  of  those  he  loves  best.  '•  Little,"  I 
say,  and  advisedly ;  for  one  narrow  room  would  probably 
contain  the  images  of  all  who  care  for  us,  yet  how  precious 
will  those  images  be  when  Death  shall  have  done  his 
work !  And  the  portraits  of  those  whom  we  have  not 
seen,  yet  who  are  our  companion?  in  thought,  or  our  teach- 
ers by  their  example,  may  also  be  deservedly  precious  to 
us  if  procurable.  A  man  would  follow  his  profession  none 
the  worse  in  a  cabinet  surrounded  with  the  likenesses  of 
those  who  had  most  ennobled  it.  How  could  a  painter, 
for  instance,  suffer  himself  to  be  unworthily  discouraged 
by  the  difficulties  of  his  art,  if  the  faces  of  Reynolds  and 
Velasquez  were  looking  down  upon  him  in  their  victorious 
calm? 

The  desire  for  family  portraits  is  supplied  in  our  day  by 
photography,  with  one  very  happy  result  —  the  necessary 
diminution  in  scale.  The  offensiveness  of  the  old  conjugal 
daubs  was  not  merely  in  the  vileness  of  the  execution,  but 
the  impertinent  importance  of  the  size.  Why  a  worthy 


Picture  Buying.  241 

citizen  should  require  thirty  square  feet  of  canvas  for  the 
exhibition  of  his  elegant  person  on  the  walls  of  his  dining- 
room,  passes  all  understanding.  Would  not  a  more  modest 
area  suffice  ?  Photography  has  settled  this  question  *  by 
the  necessarily  miniature  sizes  of  photographic  portraits. 
But  where  is  the  necessity  for  hanging  these  photographs 
about  chimney-pieces,  in  little  gilt  frames  ?  They  are 
quite  ineffective  as  room  decoration,  and  valueless  as  art. 
Pray  let  them  be  printed  always  on  paper  from  collodion 
negatives,  and  then  kept  in  a  well-bound  album. 

The  first  sign  of  a  love  of  art  great  enough  to  go 
beyond  portraits  is  the  purchase  of  engravings.  The 
subjects  of  these  engravings,  when  the  purchasers  select 
for  themselves,  indicate  their  tastes  in  the  clearest  man- 
ner. There  are  religious  prints,  and  sporting  prints,  and 
licentious  prints ;  prints  theatrical,  prints  military,  prints 
ecclesiastical.  Engravings  sell  enormously  in  England, 
and  are  provided  for  all  classes  and  all  tastes.  But  these 
engravings  are  not  so  much  bought  from  a  love  of  art  as 
from  a  feeling  of  interest  in  the  subjects  they  illustrate. 
Thus,  when  I  go  into  a  house  where  there  is  a  pretty 
engraving  of  surpliced  choristers,  with  an  inscription  in 
red  letters  underneath  —  probably  a  scrap  of  Latin  —  I 
know  that  the  master  of  the  house,  or  its  mistress,  is  a 
Puseyite  ;  but  when  I  behold  John  Knox  thundering  from 
his  pulpit,  I  suspect  that  the  head  of  the  family  has  a 
leaning  to  the  Low  Church.  But  I  do  not  infer  that 
either  cares  for  art.  And  if  you  penetrate  to  the  private 
chambers  of  ^jjpung  bachelors,  like  Mr.  Harry  Foker,  you 
will  find  prints  of  a  more  objectionable  character,  indi- 
cating a  taste  for  fine  female  ankles  and  well-developed 
busts.  Yet  in  all  this  there  is  no  interest  in  art. 

*  This  is  unhappily  a  mistake.  Since  writing  the  above  passage,  I 
have  seen  a  dreadful  announcement  in  the  newspapers,  that  the  Prince  oi 
Wales  has  had  a  photograph  of  himself  taken  the  size  of  life  !  0  lament- 
able example !  O  most  pernicious  precedent !  Fancy  the  dining-rooms 
of  our  middle  classes  decorated  with  photographs  of  their  owners  as  large 
as  life,  with  every  detail  of  lace  and  jewelry  mercilessly  inflicted  upon 
our  wearied  eyes !  Let  princes  be  taken  of  the  actual  size,  or  even  mag- 
nified seven  times  if  it  suits  them,  but  let  humble  subjects  modestly  con- 
tent themselves  with  card  miniatures  in  an  album. 
16 


242  Picture  Buying. 

Still,  even  when  some  care  for  art  does  really  awaken, 
engravings  are  always  better  appreciated  than  pictures. 
This  for  many  reasons.  The  child  likes  bright  colors,  aud 
the  perfectly  cultivated  man  likes  good  coloring;  but  to 
the  man  whose  culture  is  just  beginning,  color  is  a  great 
trouble  and  embarrassment :  he  does  not  really  enjoy  it, 
and  is  very  glad  to  be  rid  of  it,  always  preferring,  in  his 
private  soul,  an  engraving  from  a  picture,  to  the  picture 
itself.  Thus,  Turner's  works  are  popular  in  the  engrav- 
ings, and  have  been  widely  disseminated  by  engravers ; 
but  the  originals  are  not  popular,  nor  ever  can  be.  And 
independently  of  the  question  of  color,  the  mechanical 
workmanship  of  a  skilful  engraver  always  appears  more 
wonderful  to  ignorant  observers  than  the  handling  of  the 
greatest  painters,  because  the  intentional  roughness  of 
loaded  color,  or  any  powerful  impasto,  looks  like  daubing 
and  bad  execution  to  them;  whereas,  in  a  print  this  is 
not  possible,  and  the  skilled  cutting  of  the  lines  has  a 
delicacy  of  a  kind  more  obvious  to  ordinary  people  than 
the  most  delicate  application  of  a  color  film.  I  believe  the 
great  Duke  of  Wellington  was  in  this  stage  all  his  life; 
so  that  any  reader  who  happens  to  be  there  too  may  con- 
sole himself  with  the  reflection  that  he  is  in  very  good 
company. 

But  let  no  one  flatter  himself  that  his  preference  of  en- 
gravings to  pictures  is  the  result  of  a  refined  appreciation 
of  form,  because,  however  exquisite  iu  their  execution, 
engravings  from  first-rate  pictures  are  generally  very  far 
inferior  to  the  originals,  even  if  judged  witii  reference  to 
form  only.  All  good  engravers  know  the  innnite  difficulty 
of  perfect  copyism  in  their  art ;  and  the  thorough  mastery 
of  the  burin  is  so  rare,  that  the  majority  of  our  popular 
prints  are  not  to  be  relied  upon  for  form  at  all.  The  de- 
signs on  wood  furnished  to  our  wood  engravers  are  habit- 
ually cut  to  pieces  by  all  but  the  very  best  men,  and  even 
these  are  only  to  be  trusted  when  they  do  every  stroke 
with  their  own  hands,  and  do  not  employ  unskilful  as- 
sistants. 

Barbarous  Orientals  enjoy  good  color,  and  can  produce 


Picture  Buying.  245 

it  in  their  arts.  But  erudition  and  the  conceit  it  fosters 
seem  deadly  to  this  instinct,  for  hitherto  the  most  erudite 
epochs  have  colored  the  most  vilely.  Latin  and  Greek, 
and  classical  architecture,  and  academic  rules  killed  color 
in  France ;  but  Decamps,  and  Troyon,  and  Breton  re- 
covered the  faculty  in  the  fields.  For  its  perfect  exercise 
sound  health  is  needed,  and  not  too  much  poring  over 
books,  nor  yet  too  deep  an  immersion  in  affairs.  Very 
few  people  can  have  the  faculty  in  its  full  strength,  because 
so  few  have  any  opportunites  of  exercising  it.  There  is 
no  color  to  be  seen  in  our  modern  towns,  and  not  very 
much  of  it  in  our  ordinary  English  rural  landscape  under 
its  usual  aspects.*  Here,  in  the  Highlands,  I  have  it  in 
abundance,  and  enjoy  it  to  the  full  all  the  year  round ;  but 
these  deep  purples  slashed  with  emerald  green,  these  won- 
derful silvery  grays,  this  depth  of  glowing  gold,  these  scarlet 
clouds  of  sunset,  these  rosy  heights  of  snow,  and  colored 
flames  of  the  bright  northern  aurora,  —  these  things  are  not 
visible  day  by  day  to  every  citizen  of  London  or  Manches- 
ter. And  so  the  sense  of  color  languishes  from  sheer  want 
of  its  natural  nutriment,  and  the  houses  of  our  rich  middle 
class  are  covered  outside  with  white  stucco  instead  of  col- 
ored marbles,  and  hung  within  with  works  of  art  in  which 
black  printers'  ink  is  the  only  pigment  used.  And  as  color 
is  banished  from  these  houses,  so  it  is  entirely  banished 
from  the  festive  costume  of  the  men  who  live  in  them ;  so 
that  a  party  of  English  gentlemen  after  dinner  form  about 
as  colorless  a  picture  as  you  could  find  anywhere  out  of  a 
coal  pit.  White  and  black  are  not  color  at  all,  though 
both  very  valuable  to  a  colorist ;  and  if  ever  the  capacity 
to  enjoy  color  shall  be  given  to  our  descendants,  one  of  the 
first  signs  of  it  will  be  their  rejection  of  our  black  and 
white  ideal  of  festive  costume.  Why  should  we  all  go 
into  mourning  every  time  we  go  to  feast  with  our  friends  ? 
Is  it  because  we  all  know  beforehand  that  the  dinner  is 

*  Linnell's  works  show  how  much  color  may  be  found  in  common 
English  landscape ;  but  it  needs  to  be  watched  for,  because  its  grandest 
color  effects  are  rare.  The  usual  appearance  of  English  landscape  is  better 
seen  in  Constable's  green  and  gray  than  in  LinnelTs  purple  and  gold. 


244  -    Picture  Buying. 

going  to  be  a  dull  and  melancholy  business,  for  which  the 
most  mournful  possible  costume  is  the  most  becoming  and 
appropriate?  What  a  queer  sight  it  is  to  see  a  dozen 
jolly  Englishmen  at  a  festive  board,  dressed  precisely  as 
if  they  had  just  been  to  a  funeral,  and  hung  up  their  crape 
hatbands  in  the  hall !  Let  any  artist  imagine  what  would 
become  of  the  Marriage  Feast  at  Cana,  in  the  Louvre,  if 
the  gentlemen  present  were  all  to  be  dressed  in  black 
swallow-tails,  with  white  cravats  ! 

The  effect  of  this  indifference  to  color  as  it  concerns  our 
art  is  of  course  a  general  indifference  to  painting,  as  such, 
because  painting  is  especially  the  art  of  color.  And  the 
recognition  of  our  art  in  any  country  depends,  primarily, 
on  the  delicacy  of  the  sense  of  color  in  that  country.  Now, 
there  is  no  nation  in  Europe  at  the  present  day  of  which 
it  can  be  truly  said  that  it  possesses  the  color  faculty  in  a 
national  way ;  some  exceptional  individuals  possess  it  in 
each  nation,  just  as  some  may  possess  the  poetic  gift. 
And  so  picture  buying  is  an  exceptional  direction  of  ex- 
penditure ;  whereas,  if  the  sense  of  color  were  as  generally 
acute  as  the  sense  of  taste,  it  would  be  as  universal 
amongst  all  who  could  afford  it  as  wine  buying  is  with  us. 

When  this  sense  of  color  begins  to  awaken,  people 
begin  to  want  pictures,  but  for  a  long  time  they  believe  in 
copies,  and,  in  their  private  opinion,  think  them  quite  as 
good  as  the  original  works  of  great  men.  They  cannot  as 
yet  distinguish  between  good  and  bad  color,  and  are  very 
easily  satisfied,  any  thing  like  elaborate  or  subtle  coloring 
being  an  offence  to  them.  I  saw  a  little  girl  learning 
French  phrases  one  day,  and  had  the  curiosity  to  open  her 
book,  when  I  came  upon  a  conversation  about  pictures,  sup- 
posed to  take  place  in  some  continental  gallery,  and  which 
supplied  young  ladies  with  the  necessary  critical  observa- 
tions to  be  generally  applied  to  pictures  in  galleries. 
Amongst  them,  of  course,  I  found  the  following :  — 
"  Those  colors  are  too  lively,  they  should  have  been  sub- 
dued ; "  that  being  the  stock  observation  of  a  whole  class  of 
people  in  the  earliest  stages  of  connoisseurship.  Provided 
the  hues  be  confined  to  brown  and  gray,  they  are  consid- 


Picture  Buying.  245 

ered  right  and  safe  by  this  class  of  incipient  judges,  when 
any  thing  like  nature's  brilliance  of  various  color  is  rejected 
by  them  on  system  as  glaring  and  false.  This  class  of  young 
beginners  in  picture  buying  supports  a  class  of  artists  of 
its  own,  consisting  mainly  of  copyists  and  brown  con- 
ventionalists, but  of  course  never  including  a  colorist. 

These  lovers  of  brown  art  are  naturally  victimized  by 
false  old  masters,  for  these  have  the  irresistible  charm  of 
plenty  of  thick  brown  varnish.  Considering  the  extreme 
difficulty  of  estimating  the  value  of  works  by  the  old  mas- 
ters, and  the  wildly  artificial  prices  they  fetch,  it  appears 
rather  a  melancholy  necessity  in  nature  that  the  most  inex- 
perienced picture  buyers  should  throw  themselves  the  most 
readily  in  a  path  so  certain  to  be  ruinously  expensive,  and 
so  spotted  with  all  manner  of  pitfalls  laid  by  the  most 
accomplished  and  scientific  of  swindlers.  Nothing  is  easier 
than  to  buy  the  works  of  living  painters ;  you  go  to  their 
own  studios,  you  see  them  personally,  you  have  ascertained 
the  current  prices  of  their  works,  and  you  give  them  commis- 
sions, having  settled  the  three  questions  of  size,  and  price, 
and  subject.  There  is  little  chance  of  your  being  deceived, 
every  work  so  commissioned  is  quite  sure  to  be  authentic, 
and  the  painter's  regard  for  his  own  reputation  is  your 
guarantee  that  he  will  do  his  best.  The  work  is  delivered 
to  you  new  and  sound,  no  tricks  have  been  played  with  it, 
no  clearing  away  of  delicate  glazes,  no  repainting  by  other 
hands,  no  brown  varnishing  to  hide  the  crudity  of  bad 
color.  At  any  rate  you  see  what  you  buy,  and  are  not 
deceived.  But  when  you  lay  out  money  in  old  masters,  no 
such  certainty  is  possible.  Unless  you  are  really  a  judge, 
—  and  I  ask  your  pardon  for  observing  that  this  is  extremely 
improbable,  —  the  chances  are  that  you  are  buying  a  copy. 
You  cannot  refer  to  the  painter  himself,  for  he  has  been  in 
his  grave  for  centuries.  And  even  if  you  were  sure  of 
their  being  genuine,  the  works  of  dead  masters  are, 
when  worth  having  at  all,  so  costly  that  private  persons 
can  scarcely  afford  to  contend  for  them.  Their  prices 
are  now  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  merits,  and 
merely  represent  the  competition  that  exists  for  them 


246  Picture  Buying. 

amongst  the  great  personages  and  governments  of  Europe. 
The  Soult  Murillo  in  the  Louvre,  for  which  the  French 
Government  gave  twenty-four  thousand,  six  hundred  and 
twelve  pounds,  does  most  assuredly  not  contain  as  much 
good  painting  as  you  could  get  from  our  best  living  colorists 
for  the  same  sum.  No  doubt  it  is  possible  that,  being 
a  living  artist  myself,  I  may  unconsciously  feel  some 
degree  of  jealousy  when  I  reflect  upon  a  price  so  enor- 
mous ;  but  how  is  it  that  I  feel  no  jealousy  of  my  most 
successful  living  rivals  and  contemporaries,  but  only  satis- 
faction in  their  success  ?  It  is  because,  as  a  rule,  they 
give  a  fair  amount  of  good  work  for  the  money  they 
receive,  and,  except  in  very  rare  instances,  their  pictures, 
though  richly  paid,  are  still  bought  with  some  reference 
to  the  amount  of  thought  and  art  in  them,  not  in  blind 
and  bigoted  adoration  of  a  great  name.  It  is  no  honor 
to  the  art,  nor  any  proof  of  a  genuine  interest  and  delight 
in  it,  when  people  show  themselves  so  ostentatiously  in- 
different to  the  variety  of  its  teaching  and  its  pleasures 
that  they  would  rather  waste  a  fortune  on  a  single  canvas 
by  an  old  master  than  buy  thirty  equally  noble  master- 
pieces by  modern  ones. 

Whilst  reflecting  on  this  great  subject,  the  buying  of 
genuine  old  masters  at  artificial  prices,  and  false  old 
masters  at  swindler's  figures,  I  remember  a  novel  that 
I  read  in  my  boat  one  day  during  the  summer,  when  the 
breeze  was  faint,  and  she  was  gliding  idly  on  Loch  Awe. 

In  this  story,  which  is  entitled  "  Cinq  cent  mille  francs 
de  rente,"  there  is  a  banker,  M.  Picard,  who  gets  rich  and 
buys  false  old  masters,  and  is  lamentably  fleeced  and 
swindled  in  all  manner  of  ways.  The  novelist,  Dr.  Veron, 
moralizes  a  little  on  the  subject.  I  will  quote  a  paragraph 
or  two,  which  especially  suit  my  purpose :  — 

"  On  poussait  Picard  vers  Pecole  italienne. 

"  Dieu  sait  de  combien  de  Jaux  Raphael,  de  faux  Ver- 
onese, de  faux  Titien,  de  faux  Correge,  de  faux  Leonard 
de  Vinci,  1'Europe  tout  entiere  est  encombree ! 

"  C'est  surtout  avec  les  grandes  ecoles  d'ltalie  que  se 
fait  sur  une  vaste  echelle  1'agio  en  peinture.  On  sait  que 


Picture  Buying.  247 

les  copies  des  plus  belles  oeuvres  abondaient  deja  du  temps 
des  maitres,  et  se  brossaient  meme  dans  le  voisinage  de 
leurs  ateliers.  De  nos  jours  encore,  des  copies  des  chefs 
d'ecole  les  plus  recherches  se  font  a  1'enterprise." 

Dr.  Veron,  it  seems,  is  very  much  of  my  opinion  as  to 
the  superior  prudence  of  buying  modern  works  direct 
from  the  artists  themselves.  If  M.  Picard  had  done  so, 
we  are  told  that  he  would  not  have  been  cheated  and  pil- 
laged as  lie  was :  — 

"  Malheureusement,  les  nombreux  fripons  qui  exploiter- 
ent  1'inexperience  de  ce  nouvel  amateur  avaient  pris  soin 
de  le  detourner  du  gout  des  oauvres  modernes.  Si  Picard 
eut  visite  les  ataliers  de  nos  artistes  et  leur  eut  fait  des  com- 
mandes,  il  n'eut  point  ete  gruge  et  dupe  par  tout  ce  vilain 
monde." 

When  people  awake  to  the  worthlessness  of  copies  they 
are  in  a  fair  way  for  learning  something  about  real  art, 
but  do  not  buy  judiciously  at  first;  no,  nor  for  a  very  long 
time  indeed.  And  for  many  years  the  desire  for  good  art 
will  probably  remain  so  very  faint  and  feeble,  so  entirely 
secondary  to  the  love  of  sport,  or  gambling,  or  wine,  or 
any  other  gentlemanly  amusement,  that  the  greatest  artists 
can,  as  yet,  only  hope  for  a  few  chance  sovereigns  that 
these  ignobler  pleasures  may,  by  accident,  have  left  at  the 
bottom  of  the  "  patron's "  holiday  purse.  There  is  an 
anecdote,  in  Mr.  Gilchrist's  "  Life  of  Etty,"  which  affords 
a  most  felicitous  illustration  of  this :  — 

"  The  manufacturer  had  that  morning  put  in  his  pocket 
£300  to  risk  in  the  betting  ring,  and  had  lost  only  £25  of 
it.  Willing  to  save  the  remainder,  and  lay  it  up  in  a  more 
tangible  luxury,  he  threw  down  £200  in  notes  before  the 
nervous  painter,  to  whom  money  in  hand  was  always  a 
temptation." 

I  look  upon  that  anecdote  as  quite  inestimably  precious. 
Who  does  not  see  the  moral  of  it  ?  The  manufacturer 
is  John  Bull,  Etty  being  the  fine  arts  generally,  and  the 
betting  ring,  I  fear,  only  represents  too  faithfully  John 
Bull's  favorite  sporty  and  pastimes.  If  any  idle  cash  hap- 
pens to  remain  in  the  bottom  of  John  Bull's  pocket  after 


248  Picture  Buying. 

he  has  enjoyed  his  favorite  amusements,  he  may,  perhaps, 
invest  it  in  the  fine  arts  ;  and  that  is  precisely  his  idea  of 
what  he  is  pleased  to  call  "  patronage." 

With  regard  to  the  kind  of  pictures  most  generally 
bought,  we  may  take  the  evidence  of  the  exhibitions. 

Little  figure  pictures  sell  best,  —  rustic  figures  as  well 
as  any.  Bits  of  incident  connected  with  the  domesticities 
take  very  well,  —  mammas,  and  babies,  and  cradles,  and . 
that  sort  of  thing.  Returns  of  schoolboys,  arrivals  of 
interesting  letters,  scenes  of  wooing,  and  billing  and  coo- 
ing :  all  these  are  saleable  subjects. 

Subjects  like  these  are  sure  of  popularity,  for  the  ma- 
jority of  purchasers  are  always  in  the  first  stage,  which  is 
marked  by  the  love  of  the  common-place,  and  indifference 
to  all  that  is  noble  in  art,  whether  in  subject  or  treatment. 

It  is  also  marked  by  absolute  indifference  to  landscape ; 
an  indifference  which  sometimes  becomes  more  active  and 
grows  into  a  hostilg  feeling,  to  which  landscape  art  is  a 
cause  of  irritation  and  offence.  A  gentleman  said  to  me 
one  day,  with  much  emphasis,  "  You  know  I  hate  all  land- 
scapes," The  observation,  as  addressed  to  a  landscape 
painter,  may  not  have  been  very  polite,  but  it  was  quite 
sincere,  and  accurately  represented  the  feelings  of  a  whole 
class  of  conventionally  "  well  educated  "  people. 

Artists  who  minister  to  people  in  this  early  stage  of 
culture  are  the  most  fortunate  both  in  purse  and  reputa- 
tion, because  there  is  the  largest  circle  of  persons  fit  to 
appreciate  their  works.  They  may,  of  course,  be  just  as 
good  painters  as  those  whose  subjects  are  less  popular, 
whilst  they  have  the  immense  advantage  of  a  more  numer- 
ous public.  In  comparison  with  landscape  painters,  they 
have  the  same  odds  in  their  favor  that  prose  writers  have 
when  compared  with  writers  of  verse.  Mr.  Frith  is  the 
most  fortunate  example  hitherto  known  in  our  art  of  the 
happy  union  of  undeniable  artistic  ability  wrth  universal 
popularity  of  subject.  Every  Londoner  has  been  to  the 
Derby,  and  seen  a  railway  station  ;  so  every  Londoner  is 
capable  of  understanding  the  subjects^  of  Mr.  Frith's  great 
pictures.  Mr.  Leslie  was  rather  less  fortunate  in  this 


Picture  Buying.  249 

respect,  being  too  literary  to  please  the  illiterate,  and  too 
fond  of  the  past  to  enlist  very  strongly  the  sympathies  of 
those  who  are  absorbed  in  the  noisy  present.  Etty,  with 
his  splendid  idealizations  of  Academy  models,  could  scarcely 
ever  be  heartily  appreciated,  except  by  Academy  students, 
because  they  are  the  only  people  in  these  days  who  are 
accustomed  to  see  naked  men  and  women. 

The  evidence  of  the  exhibitions  tends  also  to  prove  that, 
after  domestic  incident  and  rustic  figures,  our  friends  and 
the  dogs  and  horses  have  the  best  chance  of  popularity. 
Cows  also,  and  even  that  uninteresting  animal,  the  sheep, 
find  numerous  admirers.  Thus  Landseer  and  Rosa  Bon- 
heur  are  really  popular  artists ;  whereas,  if  they  had 
devoted  themselves  to  the  naked  figure,  like  Etty,  or  to 
landscape,  like  Turner,  they  could  not  have  been  in  this 
sense  popular,  there  being  no  such  phenomenon  possible  in 
the  arts,  as  a  popular  artist  with  an  unpopular  subject 
Landseer's  art  is  enjoyed  by  a  large  class  for  its  connection 
with  their  sports,  and  is  valued  by  them  just  as  they  used 
to  value  colored  sporting  prints  in  the  last  generation ; 
its  noblest  qualities  being  quite  unappreciable  by  such 
persons.  And  Rosa  Bonheur  owed  her  immediate  recog- 
nition in  England  not  to  her  peculiar  merits  as  an  artist, 
which  are  of  a  kind  not  very  popular  here,  but  to  the 
English  love  of  horses. 

The  love  of  landscape  is  rarest  and  latest  of  all.  It  can 
only  exist  in  a  very  advanced  stage  of  civilization,  when 
man  has  lost  his  first  boyish  interest  in  himself,  and  is 
beginning  to  look  at  the  world  about  him.  And  the  appre- 
ciation of  landscape  is  only  possible  to  persons  who  have 
habitually  studied  the  noblest  natural  scenery,  which  per- 
sons are  extremely  rare,  so  that  competent  judges  in  this 
department  of  art  are  found  in  very  small  numbers.  And 
landscapes  are  not  the  most  saleable  of  artistic  merchan- 
dise —  in  France  they  are  scarcely  to  be  got  rid  of  at  all, 
unless  enlivened  by  the  presence  of  animals;  whilst  in 
England  they  are  even  yet  considered  to  belong  to  an 
inferior  class  of  art,  and  an  exhibition  where  they  predomi- 
nate is  always  spoken  of  as  uninteresting  by  the  news- 


250  Picture  Buying. 

papers.  At  Liverpool,  landscape  painters  are  frankly 
informed  that  their  works  are  not  likely  to  find  admittance, 
by  the  intelligible  hint,  "  works  of  genre  will  be  preferred." 
Landscape  painters  may  reasonably  desire  an  exhibition  of 
their  own ;  but  there  is  one  little  drawback  —  it  would 
never  pay.  The  receipts  of  the  different  academic  bodies 
would  probably  not  be  diminished  at  all,  but  perhaps  even 
increased,  by  the  entire  exclusion  of  landscape  from  their 
walls  ;  whilst  an  exhibition  of  landscapes  alone  would 
have  no  attraction  for  the  general  public,  which  would 
not  visit  it. 

Nor  do  people  pass  suddenly  from  a  state  of  repugnance 
to  one  of  love  and  appreciation.  The  transition  is  ex- 
tremely slow.  They  first  tolerate  landscape  as  a  back- 
ground to  men  or  cattle,  then  gradually  come  to  desire 
some  degree  of  elaboration  in  it,  and  so  imperceptibly 
arrive  at  that  point  where  they  can  take  some  interest  in 
common  nature,  though  they  will  not  as  yet  endure,  and 
cannot  comprehend,  any  thing  noble  in  effect  or  unusual 
in  arrangement.  And  it  is  a  fact  extremely  discouraging 
to  all  true  and  original  landscape  painters,  that  even  of 
those  persons  who  like  landscape,  so  few  can  endure  any 
thing  like  originality  in  it,  that  original  genius  and  a 
strong  and  direct  hold  on  nature  are  great  obstacles  to 
immediate  recognition  in  their  art. 

The  question  how  far  landscape  painters  ought  to  con- 
descend to  the  taste  of  the  public  admits  of  a  very  brief 
reply.  You  continually  find  persons  ignorant  of  natural 
aspects,  who  assert  that  painters  have  no  right  to  represent 
effects  which  are  to  them  unintelligible.  It  certainly  may 
not  always  be  prudent,  from  a  monetary  point  of  view,  to 
paint  such  effects ;  and  many  of  our  artists  resolutely 
deny  themselves  the  pleasure  of  painting  them,  in  order 
that  they  may  sell  their  pictures  easily  and  bring  up  their 
families  decently.  But  the  question  of  prudence  is  one 
thing,  and  the  question  of  right  another.  So  far  from 
having  no  right  to  paint  what  is  not  intelligible  to  the  vul- 
gar, the  artist  is  under  a  great  moral  obligation  to  do  it 
boldly  from  time  to  time  for  the  advancement  of  art,  even 


Picture  Buying.  251 

at  heavy  personal  sacrifice.  It  is  like  uttering  unpopular 
truth  in  literature.  Writers  who  perceive  truths  which 
are  offensive  to  their  contemporaries  are  nevertheless 
bound  to  give  them  full  and  fearless  utterance,  even  at 
the  cost  of  personal  reputation.  For  the  noble  human 
faculties  which  perceive  truth  were  not  given  to  us  with- 
out a  grave  responsibility,  and  it  is  our  bounden  duty  to 
declare  the  truth,  whether  we  get  fame  for  it  or  obloquy. 

A  very  curious  characteristic  of  human  nature  in  its 
naif  and  unconscious  state  is,  that  it  always  gets  angry  at 
things  it  cannot  understand.  When  I  see  a  thoroughly 
naif  man,  and  there  are  many  such,  approaching  some- 
thing of  which  I  know  his  ignorance  beforehand,  I  can 
predict  with  absolute  certainty  that  the  thing,  whatever  it 
may  be,  will  put  him  more  or  less  out  of  temper.  For  the 
sense  of  ignorance  is  humiliating,  and  therefore  unpleasant, 
especially  when  it  comes  on  one  with  a  sudden  shock.  A 
truly  educated  man  feels  no  anger  at  any  fresh  discovery 
of  his  own  ignorance,  but  rather  pleasure,  if  he  sees  an 
opportunity  of  learning  something,  because  the  educated 
mind  is  always  conscious  of  infinite  ignorance,  and  the 
sense  of  ignorance  is  therefore  not  strange  to  it,  but 
habitual. 

This  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  position  of  art  and 
artists. 

Naif  people  are  always  irritated  when  truths  of  na- 
ture, of  which  they  are  ignorant,  are  illustrated  in 
painting. 

I  remember  meeting  with  a  Parisian  tourist  in  the 
Highlands,  who  was  quite  seriously  vexed  at  some  cloud 
shadows  he  saw  on  a  mountain,  because  he  could  not 
make  out  what  they  were.  Had  he  seen  the  same  shad- 
ows in  a  picture,  his  irritation  would  have  been  directed 
against  the  artist,  to  whom  he  would  certainly  have  denied 
all  ability.  However,  as  he  happened  to  see  the  fact  in 
nature  and  not  in  oil  paint,  he  did  not  know  what  to  be 
angry  with,  and  so  actually  supposed  the  case  of  an  imag- 
inary artist  that  he  might  have  the  satisfaction  of  enun- 
ciating the  following  critical  opinion  :  "  Well,  whatever 


252  Picture  Buying. 

they  are,  no  artist  could  have  any  business  to  paint  them ; 
they  are  not  fit  subjects  for  art,  which  ought  to  deal  with 
what  is  intelligible  in  nature." 

"  What  is  intelligible  in  nature  ?  "  Exactly.  But  in- 
telligible to  whom  ?  Those  cloud  shadows,  represented  in 
art,  would  be  as  intelligible  to  me  as  the  shadow  of  a  man 
against  a  wall.  Here  is  the  central  point  of  the  whole 
question.  If  we  admit  that  art  is  to  be  intelligible,  noth- 
ing is  settled  until  we  have  also  decided  to  whom  it  is  to 
be  made  intelligible. 

The  fact  is,  that  whenever  any  theorist  tells  us  that  the 
only  proper  province  of  art  is  the  intelligible,  he  always 
means  what  is  intelligible  to  himself,  being  angry  at  every 
thing  that  is  above  his  capacity,  and  strongly  disposed  to 
abolish  it  if  he  could.  Thus,  people  will  often  admit  that 
Turner's  effects  may  be  true,  and  yet  deny  vehemently 
that  he  had  any  right  to  paint  them,  "  as  they  were  not  fit 
subjects  for  art,  because  not  intelligible  to  the  spectator  " — 
the  word  "  spectator,"  of  course,  meaning  the  critic  him- 
self, as  in  these  cases  it  always  does. 

In  the  formation  of  private  collections,  great  attention 
ought  always  to  be  given  to  the  character  of  the  col- 
lection as  a  whole.  Every  collection  ought  to  have  a 
character  of  its  own,  and  no  work  should  be  admitted 
into  it  which  does  not  quite  harmonize  with  that  char- 
acter. Nothing  is  more  incongruous,  nothing  fatigues 
the  eye  more  than  great  differences  of  scale  in  pictures 
hung  in  the  same  room;  and  there  are  different  kinds 
of  art,  each  good  separately,  which  harm  each  other  very 
seriously  when  seen  together.  In  this  respect  the  Vernon 
Gallery  was  any  thing  but  a  well-selected  one.  We  ought 
all  to  be  very  thankful  to  Mr.  Vernon  for  leaving  it  to 
us,  and  it  is  scarcely  right  to  look  a  gift  horse  in  the 
mouth ;  but  I  have  rarely  seen  a  collection  which  left  so 
feeble  an  impression  as  a  whole.  Separately,  the  pictures 
are,  many  of  them,  of  great  excellence ;  but  the  collec- 
tion is  brought  together  without  any  attempt  at  unity ; 
and  the  pictures  help  one  another  no  more  than  odd 
volumes  in  a  bookstall.  The  Sheepshanks'  collection, 


Picture  Buying.  253 

on  the  other  hand,  is  more  consistently  chosen.  Again, 
of  national  galleries,  the  Louvre  is  as  badly  ordered  a 
collection  as  could  well  be  imagined,  there  being  no 
proportion  whatever  in  the  space  allotted  to  different 
masters ;  it  is  a  mere  agglomeration,  without  any  plan, 
in  which  the  most  precious  things  and  the  most  worthless 
are  stuck  together  like  relics  in  some  recent  geological 
formation. 

An  ideal  national  collection  would  contain  specimens 
of  every  great  master  who  has  lived  on  the  earth ;  but 
it  would  necessarily  limit  the  number  of  examples  of 
each  painter,  which  ought,  in  every  case,  to  be  the  very 
finest  procurable  for  money.  The  number,  in  my  opinion, 
ought  to  be  limited  to  twelve.  In  twelve  examples, 
masterpieces,  carefully  selected  so  as  to  illustrate  the 
strongest  period  of  the  artist's  career,  a  very  sufficient 
idea  might  be  given  of  all  but  the  most  versatile  of 
painters.  Each  painter  ought  to  have  a  room  to  him- 
self, with  his  name  inscribed  over  the  door,  and  on  the 
walls  within,  in  great  legible  golden  letters,  so  that  there 
might  be  no  confusion  in  the  minds  of  ordinary  spectators 
as  to  whose  work  they  were  looking  at.  Under  every  pic- 
ture there  should  be  a  detailed  account  of  the  intention 
of  the  picture,  and  its  history  (but  no  attempt  at  crit- 
icism or  pointing  out  of  "beauties"),  engraved  in  legi- 
ble characters  on  a  tablet  of  marble  as  long  as  the  frame 
of  the  picture,  and  on  which  the  lower  part  of  the  frame 
should  rest.  Black  marble  would  be  the  best,  with  the 
letters  engraved  and  gilded.  No  catalogue  whatever 
ought  to  be  required,  because  it  is  wrong  to  put  poor 
people  to  the  expense  of  buying  one.  If,  as  is  generally 
the  case  with  painters,  a  portrait  of  the  artist  existed, 
there  ought  to  be  a  marble  bust  of  him,  as  truthful  as 
possible,  placed  directly  opposite  the  entrancje  with  its 
back  to  the  wall,  and  not  above  six  feet  from  the  floor, 
nor  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  because  that  would 
impede  the  sight  of  his  pictures. 

Three  or  four  copies  of  a  brief  biography  of  the  painter 
should  also  be  accessible  in  different  parts  of  the  room, 


254  Picture  Buying. 

legibly    printed    and    simply    framed,   with    a    glass    for 
protection. 

Every  picture  should  be  hung  with  its  horizon  on  a 
level  with  the  eye  of  a  spectator  of  ordinary  stature,  and 
there  should  be  a  clear  space  of  three  feet  at  least 
between  the  larger  pictures,  and  two  feet  between  the 
smaller  ones,  which  space  should  be  filled  up,  if  possible, 
with  velvet  of  a  dark  maroon  color.  If  a  nation  is  too 
poor  to  show  its  pictures  to  the  best  advantage  (as  that 
poverty-stricken  country,  England,  appears  to  be),  a  flock 
paper,  with  slight  pattern  and  all  of  one  color,  is  the 
next  best  thing  to  velvet. 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  a  nation  like  Great 
Britain  should  be  able  to  afford  velvet  for  its  picture 
galleries ;  but  a  private  speculator,  who  has  established  a 
permanent  exhibition  of  pictures  at  Paris,  was  cunning 
enough  to  cover  all  his  walls  with  it  from  top  to  bottom 
before  he  hung  a  single  picture  upon  them,  a  piece  of  ex 
travagance  which  would  astonish  our  House  of  Commons 
if  carried  out,  as  it  ought  to  be,  in  our  National  Gallery. 

Arrangements  such  as  these  would  do  more  to  facilitate 
the  study  of  painting  in  galleries  than  any  one  would 
believe  possible  who  had  not  been  accustomed  to  pass 
whole  days  and  weeks  in  looking  at  pictures.  The 
fatigue  of  such  study,  if  undertaken  in  earnest,  must 
always  be  very  great,  but  it  is  now  needlessly  increased 
by  a  total  absence  of  consideration  for  the  convenience 
of  the  student.  It  is  at  present  impossible  for  any  one 
to  study  seriously  in  any  public  gallery  without  tiring 
himself  to  death  in  seeking  out  works  which  ought  never 
to  have  been  separated,  and  straining  his  eyes,  and  stiff- 
ening his  neck,  in  vain  endeavors  to  see  pictures  which 
are  purposely  hung  so  high  as  to  be  out  of  sight. 
Galleries  like  the  Louvre  are  an  affair  of  mere  vulgar 
national  ostentation:  there  are  great  treasures  in  them, 
but  no  sign  of  any  supposition  on  the  part  of  their 
guardians  that  the  treasures  can  be  of  any  use.  The 
great  Rubenses  in  the  long  gallery  are,  it  is  true,  hung 
together,  but  they  are  hung  at  least  six  feet  too  high,  the 


Picture  Buying.  255 

only  earnest  endeavor  after  perfect  hanging  and  helpful 
association  in  the  whole  collection  having  been  bestowed 
on  the  worst  pictures  in  any  public  gallery  in  the  world,  — 
the  hideous  series  of  illustrations  of  the  life  of  St.  Bruno, 
by  Eustache  Lesueur.  These  were  hung  in  uninterrupted 
order,  but  the  priceless  Titians  are  carelessly  scattered 
amongst  other  men's  works,  high  or  low,  according  to  the 
caprice  of  the  director  or  the  convenience  of  the  hangers. 

These  defects  have  hitherto,  I  suppose,  been  almost 
inevitable  in  national  collections,  which  are  accumulated 
gradually  by  successive  governments,  depend  largely  on 
bequests,  and  are  usually  given  over  to  the  care  of  per- 
sonages who  have  little  knowledge  of  or  interest  in  art. 
But  such  defects  need  spoil  no  private  collection.  The 
principle  of  giving  a  separate  room  to  each  artist  may, 
in  large  houses,  be  carried  out  without  inconvenience, 
and  all  the  more  easily  if  the  owner  has  several  houses. 
The  practical  difficulty  of  acting  upon  this  principle  is 
that  ordinary  rooms  are  often  so  badly  lighted  that 
pictures  cannot  be  seen  in  them.  A  gallery  may,  there- 
fore, be  a  necessary  adjunct  to  houses  which  have  been 
constructed  without  reference  to  the  convenient  study  of 
art  treasures.  The  best  gallery,  however,  would  be  a  suite 
of  small  rooms,  all  lighted  from  above,  and  of  which  each 
should  be  dedicated  to  a  particular  master,  in  the  manner 
already  suggested  for  national  galleries.  If  the  owner 
were  fortunate  enough  to  possess  a  few  pictures  of  great 
size  and  importance,  he  ought  to  give  a  separate  room  to 
each  of  them  with  no  other  furniture  than  a  large  and  com- 
fortable sofa,  placed  at  the  right  distance  from  the  picture. 
An  ordinary  exhibition,  where  a  thousand  paintings  are 
incessantly  occupied  in  doing  each  other  as  much  harm  as 
they  possibly  can,  is  the  perfect  type  of  what  a  collection 
ought  not  to  be. 

The  supreme  merit  of  any  collection  is  UNITY.  Every 
picture  ought  to  illustrate  and  help  the  rest.  And  if  the 
buyer  keeps  in  view  some  great  leading  purpose,  the 
unity  will  most  likely  come  of  itself,  but  it  cannot  easily 
be  reached  otherwise.  Mere  miscellaneous  buying,  ac- 


256  Picture  Buying. 

cording  to  the  caprice  of  the  moment,  leads  to  the  raking 
together  of  unrelated  objects,  but  not  to  that  beautiful 
and  helpful  order,  which  multiplies  a  million-fold  the 
value  of  every  particle. 

Having  presumed  that  the  reader  really  loves  art,  I 
need  scarcely  hint  to  him  the  desirableness  of  such  ar- 
rangements as  will  allow  his  pictures  to  be  seen.  If  he 
cares  for  them  at  all  he  will  certainly  hang  them,  so  that 
he  can  see  them.  There  is  no  better  proof  of  the  stony 
insensibility  of  many  owners  of  pictures  than  their  habit 
of  hanging  them  where  not  a  creature  except  the  flies 
can  ever  hope  to  behold  them.  Whenever  two  pictures 
are  hung  one  above  another,  one  of  them  is  sure  to  be  out 
of  sight.  Pictures  hung  in  ordinary  rooms,  which  people 
inhabit  regularly,  should  not  be  crowded  up  to  the  very 
ceiling  like  an  exhibition,  but  rather  carefully  isolated  and 
distributed  all  over  the  house,  such  pictures  only  being 
allowed  to  remain  near  each  other  as  are  naturally  fitted 
to  be  companions.  They  ought  also  to  be  intellectually 
in  harmony  with  the  uses  of  the  room.  Illustrations  of 
literature,  and  portraits  of  authors,  have  a  greater  value 
in  libraries  than  in  billiard  rooms.  I  enjoy  good  land- 
scapes so  heartily  myself  that  I  am  glad  to  meet  with 
them  anywhere,  but  they  have  a  better  chance  of  being 
seen  in  drawing-rooms  than  in  dining-rooms.  A  land- 
scape is  half  lost  unless  you  can  see  its  detail,  which  from 
your  seat  at  table  is  often  impossible  in  a  large  dining- 
room.  But  a  portrait  of  life  size  loses  nothing  a  few 
yards  away.  At  the  Manchester  Exhibition  of  Art 
Treasures,  Gainsborough's  imperious  beauty  awed  the 
crowd,  with  her  scornful  eye,  twenty  paces  off.  Nothing 
is  nobler  in  a  dining-room  than  a  series  of  lordly  portraits 
by  Vandyke  or  Reynolds ;  but  their  successors  of  the  pres- 
ent day  have  such  terrible  difficulties  of  costume  to  con- 
tend against  that  it  would  be  a  dangerous  experiment  to 
surround  a  scene  of  festivity  with  gentlemen  in  well-fitting 
waistcoats  and  highly  varnished  boots.  And  if  you  have 
any  ugly  portraits  that  you  have  an  affection  for,  as  is 
very  likely,  let  them  be  placed  in  your  most  private 


Picture  Buying.  257 

rooms,  where  no  guests  come.  They  are  better  there  for 
many  reasons.  It  is  in  our  calmest  hours  that  the  dead 
come  back  to  us  in  memory;  it  is  then  that  we  hear 
again  their  dear  voices ;  it  is  then  that  we  recall  most 
vividly  their  half-forgotten  looks  and  gestures.  The  ugly 
portrait  may  be  precious  to  ws,  but  it  cannot  touch  the 
hearts  of  strangers.  Alone,  we  may  look  up  to  it  through 
brimming  tears  ;  but  the  world  will  not  weep  before  it. 

I  think  the  prevalent  idea  that  the  purchasing  of  pic- 
tures is  exclusively  a  luxury  for  very  rich  people  who  can 
afford  collections,  is  unfortunate  for  the  art.  We  all  of  us 
buy  books,  though  very  few  of  us  can  afford  a  library; 
why  should  we  not  all  buy  pictures  too  ?  The  most  of  us 
pay  pretty  heavy  wine-merchants'  bills ;  and  wine,  though 
pleasant  enough  in  its  way,  is  no  more  essential  than  pic- 
tures. I  see  no  other  reason  than  this,  —  that  we  like 
wine  better. 

Every  comfortable  house  ought  to  have  three  or  four 
good  pictures,  at  least  one  in  each  of  its  principal  rooms  ; 
but  such  a  picture  as  its  owner  would  not  weary  of,  or 
else  he  must  have  more.  And  all  good  pictures  are  inex- 
haustible :  some  by  a  mysterious  charm  and  fascination,  as 
the  melancholy  portrait  in  the  Louvre,  opposite  the  great 
Veronese,  or  the  face  of  the  Mona  Lisa;  some  by  their 
mighty  poetry,  as  the  Temeraire  in  the  Turner  Gallery ; 
some  by  a  wonderful  ideal  of  beauty,  as  the  Phryne ;  and 
some  by  fulness  of  matter  and  endless  harmonies  of  color, 
as  the  best  works  of  John  Lewis. 

But  if  we  are  to  have  as  noble  pictures  in  our  houses  as 
the  merchants  used  to  have  at  Venice,  we  ought  to  have  as 
noble  houses  to  put  them  in ;  not  necessarily  very  big  ones, 
—  our  own  are  generally  quite  large  enough,  —  but  houses 
glorious  with  fair  architecture.  There  has  been  as  much 
money  spent  on  English  country-seats  as  would  have  built 
three  or  four  Venices,  and  yet  there  are  very  few  of  them 
that  one  could  endure  to  paint ;  and  such  as  are  fit  for  pic- 
torial treatment,  are  so  rather  by  reason  of  mere  quaint 
picturesqueness  than  any  high  architectural  excellence  ;  the 
corrupt  and  barbarous  Elizabethan  being  the  most  effec- 
17 


258  Picture  Buying. 

tive  domestic  style  we  can  boast.  And  in  our  treatment 
of  such  old  buildings  as  we  possess,  we  have  almost  all  of 
us  sinned  against  their  builders,  either  by  "  modernizing  " 
in  the  last  century,  or  "  restoring"  (which  means  destroy- 
ing} in  this.  I  cannot  tell  what  is  to  come  in  the  future, 
—  whether  we  are  always  to  live  contentedly  in  square 
boxes  with  oblong  holes  in  them,  as  at  present,  or  whether 
we  shall  inhabit  worthier  dwellings.  For  it  is  conceivable 
that  human  habitations  might  be  erected  which  might 
stand  alone  in  the  fields,  and  not  be  utterly  shamed  by  the 
contrast  between  nature's  glory  and  their  meanness  ; 
buildings  whose  marble  walls  might  lift  themselves  against 
the  blossoming  trees,  themselves  variegated  with  hues  not 
less  exquisite ;  mansions  whose  sculptured  portals  might 
in  some  degree  respond  to  the  infinite  sculpture  of  natural 
leaves  and  branches  in  the  depths  of  their  ancient  woods. 

When  every  house  shall  have  good  art  which  now  has 
good  literature,  a  good  natural  art  will  be  provided  to 
supply  the  want,  —  an  art  neither  beyond  the  sympathies 
of  our  richer  middle  class,  nor  beyond  its  purse.  That 
class  will,  of  course,  understand  works  of  genre  before  it 
comes  to  understand  landscape,  but  I  do  not  despair, 
even  for  landscape ;  for  it  seems  to  me  that  people  can- 
not be  in  the  habit  of  travelling  every  autumn  without 
eventually  perceiving  natural  beauty,  more  or  less,  accord- 
ing to  their  capacity.  And  they  will  perceive,  too,  in  the 
exhibitions,  how  nature  is  interpreted  by  art,  and,  in  time, 
understand  the  symbols  of  the  interpretation,  so  as  to  come 
to  know  what  the  painter  is  aiming  at.  Once  this  point 
reached,  the  walls  of  a  hundred  thousand  houses  will  begin 
to  glow  with  the  preciousness  of  faithful  art. 

As  death  gradually  removes  the  collectors  one  by  one, 
they  will  naturally  feel  the  desire  common  to  all  their 
order,  to  keep  their  treasures  together.  For  the  pictures 
when  separate  are  the  work  of  the  artists  who  painted 
them ;  but  their  helpful  association  is  the  work  of  the  col- 
lector alone,  and  a  work  requiring  very  high  qualities  of 
judgment  and  right  feeling.  Now  no  man  likes  the  idea 
that  his  life's  labor  will  be  annihilated  at  his  death ;  and 


Picture  Buying.  259 

collectors  find  great  bitterness  iu  the  thought  that  what 
they  have  so  carefully  associated  will  be  dispersed  as 
widely  as  ever  when  they  are  gone.  And,  if  the  public 
only  has  the  sense  to  avail  itself  of  this  feeling  in  collectors 
of  works  of  art,  it  may  come  to  possess  splendid  galleries 
for  the  mere  cost  of  the  necessary  buildings  to  keep  them 
in. 

An  initiative  only  is  wanted,  and  Manchester  will  give 
that.  Every  town  in  England  of  sufficient  importance  to 
have  a  lecture  hall  or  a  concert  room  is  also  large  enough 
to  have  a  free  gallery.  They  may  be  deterred  from  this 
for  some  time  by  the  impression  that  they  cannot  afford  to 
fill  such  galleries  with  works  of  art,  but  this  is  a  needless 
anxiety.  The  galleries  would  be  filled  in  a  hundred  years 
by  gifts  and  bequests,  and  until  then  it  would  be  well  to 
remember  that  pictures  look  none  the  worse  for  being  well 
isolated;  and  that,  if  there  were  a  few  yards  of  space 
between  them  for  the  first  twenty  years,  they  would  be 
seen  all  the  better  for  it.  Let  the  galleries  only  be  large 
enough,  so  as  to  invite  contributions,  and  the  contributions 
will  come ;  but,  if  our  municipal  bodies  do  with  the  pro- 
vincial free  galleries,  what  the  Government  has  hitherto 
done  with  the  National  one,  that  is,  discourage  contribu- 
tion to  the  utmost,  of  course  they  need  not  hope  for  very 
many  contributors.  The  Vernon  collection  was  first  put 
into  a  dark  cellar,  and  afterwards  on  the  ground  floor  of 
an  empty  old  house,  where  no  picture  could  possibly  be 
seen;  next  it  was  removed  to  a  temporary  structure  at 
Kensington.  The  magnificent  Turner  bequest  was  treated 
with  no  more  consideration ;  and  therefore  when  Mr. 
Sheepshanks  presented  his  gallery  to  the  nation,  the  gift 
was  accompanied  by  the  condition,  that  it  should  have  a 
building  of  its  own.  If  the  Government  had  erected  a 
National  Gallery  twice  as  large  as  the  Louvre,  and  invited 
private  individuals  to  fill  it,  it  would  have  been  filled  in  a 
hundred  years,  and  that  most  richly.  All  collectors,  all 
living  artists,  should  be  encouraged  to  contribute  pictures 
to  the  National  Gallery,  a  responsible  council  having  the 
power  of  declining  unsuitable  offers  ;  and  the  nation  would 


260  Picture  Buying. 

thus  obtain  immense  numbers  of  valuable  works  for  the 
mere  cost  of  the  wall  to  hang  them  on. 

If  this  book  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  any  one  pos- 
sessing sufficient  local  influence  to  determine  the  form  of  a 
provincial  public  gallery,  let  me  entreat  him  to  consider 
that  a  picture  gallery  is,  after  all,  a  place  to  see  pictures 
in,  and  not  architecture,  and,  therefore,  that  whatever 
architectural  splendor  is  admissible,  should  of  course  be 
quite  subordinate  to  the  main  object  of  showing  the  pic- 
tures. If  you  ask  an  architect  for  a  design  for  a  gallery, 
he  will  sacrifice  three  out  of  four  of  all  the  pictures  you 
can  ever  hope  to  get  together,  to  what  he  considers  an 
imposing  architectural  effect.  He  will  build  you  magnifi- 
cent halls,  when,  in  fact,  a  large  weaving  shed  with  the 
looms  out  would  serve  your  purpose  much  better.  I  have 
seen  extensive  weaving  sheds  in  the  manufacturing  dis-? 
tricts,  which,  at  very  little  cost,  might  have  been  turned 
into  far  better  picture  galleries  than  any  palace  in  Europe. 
Let  its  roof-lights  look  to  the  north,  and  have  common 
deal  partitions  to  hang  the  pictures  upon,  and  such  a 
weaving  shed  would  be  an  unrivalled  gallery,  such  a  gal- 
lery as  there  is  not  at  this  moment  in  any  metropolis  in 
the  world.  It  would  be  far  better  than  the  Louvre  with 
its  lofty  halls,  and  incomparably  superior  to  our  dingy 
National  Gallery  and  Royal  Academy  with  their  dining- 
room  proportions.  The  main  cost  of  a  really  good  picture 
gallery  would  always  be  in  land,  for  a  perfect  gallery, 
where  every  picture  would  be  on  a  level  with  the  eye,  and 
lighted  from  above,  would  of  course  occupy  an  immense 
area,  but  the  site  might  be  made  to  pay  for  itself,  by  hav- 
ing a  structure  of  great  length  with  plenty  of  street  front- 
age, the  ground  floor  and  cellaring  being  let  for  shops  and 
warehouses,  provided,  always,  that  an  intermediate  story  of 
fire-proof  empty  brick  chambers  were  constructed  between 
the  merchandise  and  the  pictures.  An  incongruous  idea, 
perhaps,  you  think,  to  put  the  wares  below  and  the  pic- 
tures above.  On  the  contrary,  quite  a  natural  juxtaposi- 
tion. Art  is  always  based  upon  and  supported  by 
commercial  prosperity,  and  the  world's  best  masterpieces 


Picture  Buying.  261 

would  only  be  in  their  right  place  with  stores  of  merchan- 
dise under  them. 

Picture  galleries,  whether  public  or  private,  are  the 
simplest  things  in  the  world  to  build,  yet  nobody  seems  to 
know  how  to  build  them.  The  fact  is,  that  the  problem  is 
so  extremely  simple  and  obvious,  that  learned  and  clever 
people  wfll  not  condescend  to  pay  any  attention  to  it.  The 
problem  is  merely  this ;  to  shelter  a  picture  from  the 
weather,  and  yet  allow  of  its  being  seen.  Well,  since 
the  invention  of  glass,  where  is  thje  difficulty  ?  I  notice  that 
for  things  people  really  care  to  show  they  manage  much 
better.  For  instance,  when  a  tradesman  wants  his  adver- 
tisement to  be  read,  he  does  not,  if  the  print  is  small,  paste 
it  up  on  his  third  story,  but  wafers  it  to  his  glass  window 
at  a  height  .of  about  five  feet  from  the  pavement  of  the 
street,  so  as  to  be  level  with  the  eyes  of  the  passers-by. 
But  our  picture  hanging  generally  seems  to  proceed  on  the 
supposition  that  lovers  of  art  are  endowed  with  wings,  and 
can  poise  themselves  before  a  picture  near  the  ceiling  of  a 
lofty  hall,  like  a  bee  contemplating  a  blossom. 


262      The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures. 


XIII. 

THE    HOUSING  OF  NATIONAL  ART   TREASURES. 

TX7"HEN  artistic  questions  come  before  parliament,  it  is 
*  ^  usually  in  connection  with,  public  edifices  or  national 
pictures.  On  such  occasions  it  is  curious  to  observe  how 
few  members  really  take  part  in  the  discussion,  how  these 
few  always  reappear,  and  with  what  languid  interest  other 
honorable  gentlemen  listen  to  them  or  bear  with  them. 
Lovers  of  art  ought  to  feel  warmly  grateful  to  the  few 
representatives,  who  maintain,  however  they  may  differ 
among  themselves,  that  Art  is  a  matter  of  national  con- 
cern, requiring,  from  time  to  time,  the  attention  of  the 
legislature.  It  might  be  desirable,  perhaps,  that  these 
gentlemen  should  be  more  united  in  their  views ;  but  it  is 
well  known  to  all  who  study  the  fine  arts  that  identity  of 
opinion  on  that  subject  is  hopeless,  the  only  agreement  that 
can  be  expected  amongst  lovers  of  art  being  that  they  all 
agree  to  love  it  in  one  way  or  other,  though  never  exactly 
in  the  same  way. 

Much  has  been  said  about  the  liberality  of  England  in 
purchasing  jewels,  and  her  parsimony  in  caskets.  She  has 
bought  pictures  and  statues,  but  she  will  not,  it  is  said,  go 
to  the  expense  of  rooms  to  show  them  and  keep  them  in. 
The  delay  in  this,  and  it  is  only  delay,  is  one  which  I  have 
never  felt  disposed  to  regret,  except  so  far  as  it  affects  our 
immediate  enjoyment  of  the  art  treasures,  and  may  tend 
to  discourage  gifts  and  bequests.  But  recent  debates  lead 
us  to  infer  that  this  delay  now  approaches  its  inevitable 
term,  and  that  next  session  proposals  will  be  brought  be- 
fore parliament  for  the  construction  of  a  new  National 
Gallery,  or  for  the  enlargement  of  the  present  one.  A 
vote  of  £20,000,  to  purchase  land  behind  the  existing 


The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures.      263 

building,  was  agreed  to  before  the  dissolution  of  parlia- 
ment ;  but  for  a  final  decision  on  the  subject  we  must  now 
wait  until  next  year. 

There  is  a  marked  tendency  in  the  English  mind,  espe- 
cially in  that  peculiar  manifestation  of  it  which  may  be 
called  the  English  parliamentary  mind,  to  receive  coldly 
any  proposition  based  upon  abstract  ideas  of  what  ought  to 
be,  whilst  it  readily  entertains  proposals  for  modifications 
and  improvements  in  what  is.  English  sentiment  in  this 
respect  is  very  faithfully  represented  by  the  way  in  which 
country  gentlemen  usually  set  about  improvements  on 
their  mansions  and  estates.  They  have  a  rooted  dislike  to 
comprehensive  plans,  necessitating  sacrifices  which  are  to 
be  made  all  at  once,  and  changes  which  admit  of  no  transi- 
tion. They  make  sacrifices  which  are  in  the  end  equally 
heavy,  and  changes  which  are  equally  revolutionary,  but 
they  set  about  it  in  the  national  manner,  pulling  down  a 
gable  here,  building  out  a  new  room  there,  altering  the 
roads  and  fences  year  by  year  till  the  ghosts  of  their 
fathers  would  not  know  the  old  places  again  if  they  re- 
visited the  moon's  glimpses.  This  is  probably  due  to  some 
tenderness  of  sentiment.  We  get  attached  to  places  and 
things,  even  when  we  acknowledge  them  to  be  incon- 
venient. A  total  and  sudden  change,  even  for  the  better, 
leaves  a  void  in  the  recesses  of  our  hearts.  Here  is  Mr. 
Cowper,  for  instance,  who  has  got  attached  in  some  mys- 
terious way  to  those  plain  and  homely  little  rooms  in  Tra- 
falgar Square,  which  we  dignify  by  the  proud  title  of  a 
"National  Gallery,"  and  so  pleads  for  their  retention  in 
the  body  of  a  new  Palace  of  Art  worthy  of  the  nation. 
"  It  would  be  a  clumsy  thing,"  he  says,  "  to  pull  down  the 
present  gallery  entirely  ;  a  good  architect  would  leave  a 
great  part  of  it  standing,  but  transform  it  by  additions 
into  all  that  is  desired.  There  would  be  a  new  facade, 
and  a  new  building  would  be  attached  to  the  old  building, 
which  would  be  so  altered  and  reconstructed  that  you 
would  not  know  it  again."  Mr.  Cowper  cannot  feel  hurt 
at  being  compared  to  so  respectable  a  class  of  men  as 
country  gentlemen.  I  therefore  venture  to  observe  that 


264      The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures. 

this  bit  of  economy  is  exactly  that  of  a  country  gentleman 
making  what  he  calls  "alterations  ; "  it  is  very  respectable, 
and  in  the  highest  degree  national,  but  it  is  not  artistic, 
and  it  is  not  wise.  It  is  -pottering.  And  whatever  has  to 
be  done  about  art  should  be  done  in  a  very  different  spirit. 

Other  members  felt  this  as  soon  as  they  heard  that  there 
was  a  hankering  for  saving  the  beloved  old  rooms.  Mr. 
Tite  said,  "  It  was  quite  idle  to  think  of  adapting  the  pre- 
sent building  to  the  purposes  of  a  National  Gallery." 
Sir  G.  Bowyer,  like  an  Israelite  in  Canaan,  would  pull 
the  present  building  down  utterly,  and  "  let  not  one  stone 
remain  upon  another."  Mr.  Locke  "  entirely  concurred  in 
the  opinion  that  if  any  thing  was  to  be  done  with  the  Na- 
tional Gallery,  it  ought  to  be  pulled  down  altogether.  As 
he  understood  the  right  honorable  gentleman  (Mr.  Cow- 
per),  he  was  going  to  put  a  new  face  upon  the  National 
Gallery ;  but  putting  a  new  face  upon  a  man  did  not  alter 
his  inside,  nor  did  it  produce  any  greater  change  in  a  build- 
ing. Although  a  new  face  might  be  put  upon  the  National 
Gallery,  the  old  miserable  rooms  would  remain  within,  and 
every  disgrace  and  inconvenience  which  attached  to  the 
building  would  be  perpetuated."  Mr.  Gregory  hoped 
"  that  his  right  hon.  friend  would  make  it  a  sine  qua  non 
that  the  new  gallery  should  be  built  de  novo,  and  that 
nothing  should  be  taken  from  the  present  structure.  No 
patchwork  whatever  could  convert  the  present  gallery  into 
a  creditable  building  worthy  of  the  treasures  it  was  to 
contain."  Mr.  Locke  repeated  that  "  if  the  new  gallery 
were  to  be  built  in  harmony  with  the  old  one  it  would  be 
a  dead  failure.  It  would  cost  a  great  deal  and  satisfy  no 
one."  Sir  J.  Pakington  "  was  anxious  that  there  should 
be  neither  harmony  nor  resemblance  between  the  present 
National  Gallery  and  the  proposed  new  building,  which  he 
trusted  would  be  a  complete  design  suited  to  the  site  and 
the  object  required." 

It  is  highly  satisfactory  to  know  that  a  few  energetic 
members  of  parliament  are  quite  alive  to  the  necessity  for 
a  grander  way  of  treating  this  question  than  the  Govern- 
ment seems  inclined  to  venture  upon.  To  retain  the 


The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures.      265 

present  building,  or  any  portion  of  it,  within  the  new  one 
would  be  a  fatal  error.  It  would  ruin  the  design  by  com- 
pelling the  new  galleries  to  accommodate  themselves  to 
the  bad  ones  we  have  already.  The  existing  rooms  are 
such  as  would  naturally  be  constructed  at  an  epoch  when 
the  nation  was  only  just  beginning,  in  a  feeble,  infantine 
way,  to  wish  for  a  collection  of  pictures,  but  they  are  not 
such  as  a  wealthy  country  like  England  ought  to  retain 
permanently  even  as  a  portion  of  its  great  art  gallery. 
The  Government  hopes  to  save  a  little  money  by  retaining 
these  apartments,  and  it  is  the  traditional  policy  of  British 
Governments  -to  pinch  on  artistic  expenditure  generally, 
because  the  mass  of  country  constituents  care  nothing 
about  art.  Governments  are  not  to  be  severely  blamed 
for  representing,  in  the  way  they  order  the  expenditure  of 
public  money,  the  general  feeling  of  the  nation,  however 
narrow  or  misguided  it  may  be.  If  the  nation  were  really 
anxious  to  have  noble  public  buildings,  Cabinets  would 
seek  popularity  by  erecting  them.  But  it  may  be  per- 
mitted to  observe  that  on  certain  occasions  it  may  become 
the  duty  and  even  the  interest  of  the  Government  to  make 
itself  the  representative  of  a  small  instructed  class  rather 
than  of  a  large  uninformed  one.  Our  Government  does  so 
from  time  to  time  on  various  occasions ;  it  has  done  so 
even  in  artistic  matters,  especially  in  the  purchase  of  valu- 
able pictures,  most  notably  the  magnificent  Veronese.  The 
country  constituents  would  not,  as  a  body,  be  inclined  to 
think  that  a  piece  of  old  canvas  could  possibly  be  worth 
such  a  sum  as  fourteen  thousand  pounds  ;  still  the  purchase 
was  made,  and  very  rightly,  because  the  country  constitu- 
ents were  not  the  best  judges.  I  only  wish  that  in  the 
erection  of  a  new  building  for  the  national  pictures,  some- 
thing of  the  same  boldness  might  be  exercised.  Mr.  Cow- 
per,  with  that  timidity  which  is  habitual  to  gentlemen  in 
his  position,  tries  to  propitiate  parliament  by  the  assurance 
that  the  new  gallery  will  only  cost  £100,000,  Immedi- 
ately afterwards  we  read  that  "  the  vote  of  £200,000,  the 
proportion  of  the  total  sum  of  £703,000  required  this  year 
for  the  purchase  of  lands  and  houses  for  a  site  for  the  new 


266      The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures. 

courts  of  Justice  and  offices,  was  agreed  to."  The  courts 
of  Justice  are  not  likely  to  cost  much  less  than  a  million, 
including  the  site,  and  -one-tenth  of  that  sum  is  proposed 
for  the  great  national  Palace  of  Art. 

I  am  aware  that  the  site  of  the  new  National  Gallery  is 
already  partly  supplied  by  the  land  occupied  by  the  old 
one,  and  it  fortunately  happens  that  the  remaining  ground 
required  is  to  be  had  on  reasonable  terms.  Still,  such  a 
sum  as  £100,000  is  evidently  inadequate  even  for  the 
erection  of  a  fine  building.  Imagine,  for  example,  what 
it  would  cost  to  reproduce  the  Louvre  in  London !  I 
am  far  from  desiring  such  a.  reproduction,  for  although 
the  Louvre  is  altogether  very  grand,  and  in  parts  very 
beautiful  (especially  the  old  quadrangle  and  the  colonnade), 
it  is  not  by  any  means  a  perfect  picture  gallery ;  but  I  do 
say  that  England,  considering  her  prodigious  wealth,  and 
her  proud  position  amongst  European  nations,  ought  to 
have  an  art  palace,  in  no  way  inferior  to  the  Louvre  in 
point  of  size  and  artistic  magnificence,  and  very  far 
superior  to  it  in  convenience  and  wise  adaptation  to  the 
purposes  for  which  it  should  be  erected.  What  the 
Louvre  has  cost  I  hardly  dare  venture  to  estimate,  the  new 
buildings  which  join  it  to  the  Tuileries  have  swallowed  up, 
I  believe?  more  than  two  millions  sterling ;  the  old  quad- 
rangle could  scarcely  be  erected  in  our  day  for  less  than  a 
million.  It  is  true  that  much  of  the  new  structure  is  used 
for  other  than  artistic  purposes,  but  we  have  said  nothing 
about  the  long  gallery.  A  more  useful  building  might  be 
had  for  less  cost,  but  a  building  which  should  be  at  the 
same  time  a  good  gallery  and  an  imposing  work  of  archi- 
tectural art  could  scarcely  be  completed  for  less  than  one 
million  sterling,  exclusively  of  the  site. 

Not  that  our  gallery  need  be  erected  all  at  once.  The 
best  way  would  be  to  get  first  the  land  for  the  site,  and  a 
noble  design,  one  specially  suited  to  an  art  gallery,  yet  at 
the  same  time  of  palatial  splendor,  then  pull  down  the 
present  National  Gallery  entirely,  as  Sir  George  Bowyer 
would  have  it,  leaving  not  one  stone  remaining  upon 
another;  after  that  begin  to  build  a  piece  of  the  new 


The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures.      267 

palace,  large  enough  for  our  present  wants,  and  let  the 
plan  be  strictly  followed,  as  future  necessities  arose.  In 
the  great  Gothic  times,  "  when  men  knew  how  to  build,"  it 
never  seems  to  have  occurred  to  them  that  a  cathedral 
must  necessarily  be  finished  before  it  was  used,  or  that  one 
generation  was  bound  to  end  the  labor.  Only  let  the  plan 
be  worthy  enough  and  magnificent  enough,  only  begin  it 
grandly,  and  posterity  will  be  sure  to  carry  it  forward ! 

It  is  especially  necessary  that  a  National  Gallery  should 
be  begun  on  the  understanding  that  the  design  is  too  vast 
for  one  generation.  National  art  collections  are  accumu- 
lative ;  no  year  passes  without  adding  to  their  wealth.  If 
it  were  known  that  the  nation  had  a  great  building  which 
was  intended  to  grow  with  the  collections,  valuable  be- 
quests would  be  thereby  much  encouraged  and  would  be- 
come much  more  frequent.  Therefore,  I  say,  let  us  begin 
a  great  Palace  of  Art  of  such  vast  design  that  to  com- 
plete it  will  cost  millions,  but  let  us  not  think  of  complet- 
ing it  in  our  day,  only  of  beginning  it,  and  gradually  going 
on  with  it  as  fresh  space  is  wanted. 

This  would  be  the  right  spirit  in  which  to  enter  on  such 
a  task.  The  present  building  is  an  excellent  example  of 
how  a  wrong  and  foolish  spirit  sets  to  work  in  such  mat- 
ters. It  is  thoroughly  bourgeois  from  dome  to  pavement. 
A  National  Gallery  was  to  be  built  at  once,  —  that  is  in  a 
year  or  two,  —  it  must  look  rather  imposing,  and  yet  be 
economical.  Pillars,  it  is  well  known,  are  imposing: 
there  were  royal  pillars  at  Carlton  House,  no  longer 
wanted,  a  capital  opportunity  for  uniting  economy  with  a 
certain  degree  of  splendor,  so  the  architect  is  told  that  he 
must  make  use  of  these  particular  pillars.  The  front  was 
planned  to  fit  these  adjuncts,  and  the  domes  were  added  to 
give  an  august  and  Michelangelesque  expression  to  the 
whole.  We  know  the  result,  we  know  that  for  years  such 
of  us  as  have  eyes  and  can  see  are  weary  of  pillars  and 
pediment,  and  utterly  ashamed  of  the  dome  and  her  twin 
daughters.  Even  our  good,  honest  English  attachment  to 
ugly  things  that  we  have  been  accustomed  to  will  not 
reconcile  us  to  them. 


268      The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures. 

That  edifice  is  now  somewhere  about  thirty  years  old, 
and  we  are  already  talking  about  destroying  it,  or  meta- 
morphosing it  so  that  nobody  may  know  it  again ;  for  so 
heartily  is  the  thing  hated,  that  any  one  who  ventures  to 
talk  of  preserving  it  is  at  particular  pains  to  impress  it  on 
our  minds  that  we  shall  not  recognize  the  object  of  our 
aversion  in  the  disguise  he  proposes  for  it.  And  what  did 
this  condemned  monstrosity  cost  ?  It  cost  ninety-six  thou- 
sand pounds.  And  for  four  thousand  more  Mr.  Cowper 
now  tells  us  that  he  hopes  to  provide  an  edifice  worthy  of 
the  nation  !  Well  may  he  be  anxious  to  destroy  as  little 
as  possible  of  the  existing  building !  Well  may  he  reflect 
that  all  that  brick-work,  and  lath,  and  plaster,  and  flooring, 
have  cost  money ! 

We  cannot  have  a  noble  edifice  for  any  such  sum.  We 
may  get  bare  shelter  for  the  pictures,  and  if  we  manage 
very  cleverly,  more  cleverly  than  any  nation  ever  yet  did 
manage,  we  may  so  arrange  our  simple  picture  shed  as  to 
be  able  to  see  and  study  the  works  it  will  protect.  That 
would  be  a  great  thing  certainly,  a  result  well  worth  the 
money  asked  for.  But  a  great  national  edifice  worthy  of 
England  for  four  thousand  more  than  the  Wilkins  gallery 
cost  is  a  delusion ! 

If  the  Government  does  not  feel  justified  in  voting  more 
than  a  small  sum,  say  £200,000,  why  not  make  an  appeal 
to  all  lovers  of  art  in  England  ?  Might  we  not  all  join, 
according  to  our  means,  in  a  great  national  subscription  ? 
If  it  is  wrong  to  tax  those  who  do  not  care  for  Art  in 
order  to  build  a  palace  they  will  never  enjoy,  let  us  who 
do  care  tax  ourselves  voluntarily.  Might  not  the  Royal 
Academy,  as  a  body,  give  a  handsome  sum  for  so  great  a 
purpose?  Might  not  our  great  collectors  give  the  value 
of  one  or  two  pictures?  Might  not  our  successful  artists 
give  a  month's  earnings  ?  And  might  not  all  these  sub- 
scriptions be  repeated,  along  with  a  new  Government 
grant,  as  each  generation  built  its  piece  of  the  great  palace  ? 
That  is  how  the  great  cathedrals  were  built :  everybody 
gave  something,  generation  after  generation.  It  is  true 
that  they  did  it  often  from  selfish  reasons  —  to  eat  butter 


The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures.      269 

in  Lent,  to  escape  hell,  to  obtain  indulgences ;  but  may 
not  we,  who  profess  to  be  enlightened  lovers  of  the  fine 
arts,  spend  for  once,  together,  and  for  a  great  public  purpose, 
instead  of  spending  always  singly  for  our  own  selfish  ends? 

Let  us  first  imagine  what  a  very  simple  but  useful 
gallery,  or  picture  shed,  ought  to  be ;  and  then  after  that 
let  us  indulge  the  dream  of  what  a  noble  national  Palace 
of  Art  ought  to  be. 

No  actually  existing  picture  gallery  comes  so  near  to 
the  plain  practical  ideal  as  that  at  South  Kensington. 
You  can  see  the  pictures  or  most  of  them;  the  rooms  are 
not  too  lofty,  and  the  light,  though  not  too  glaring  is 
abundant.  There  is  no  room  in  the  Louvre  so  good,  unless 
it  be  that  new  little  one  with  the  black  doors,  the  first  on 
your  right  hand  as  you  pass  from  the  Salon  Carre  down  the 
long  gallery.  For,  after  all,  the  best  gallery  is  that  in 
which  the  pictures  are  best  seen.  The  best  thing,  of  what- 
ever kind,  is  that  which  best  answers  the  peculiar  purpose 
of  that  particular  sort  of  thing.  For  instance,  the  gallery 
at  South  Kensington,  however  unadorned,  is  a  better 
gallery  than  those  two  new  halls  in  the  Louvre  where  the 
French  School  is  lodged.  Those  rooms  are  most  noble 
rooms ;  but  they  are  so  lofty  that  three-fourths  of  the  pictures 
are  lost  in  them  by  being  hung,  nut  too  high  to  be  seen,  as 
objects,  but  too  high  to  be  studied,  as  pictures.  I  may  be 
told  that  it  is  a  good  thing  to  have  lofty  halls  for  two 
reasons ;  first,  because  they  are  grander,  architecturally, 
which  is  very  true ;  arid,  secondly,  because  more  people 
may  breathe  in  them,  which  is  also  true.  I  may  also  be 
told,  that  although  the  hall  may  be  lofty,  there  is  no  neces- 
sity for  hanging  pictures  any  higher  than  in  a  lower  room. 
To  these  objections  I  answer,  first,  that  the  architectural 
qualities  of  the  rooms  must  be  made  subservient  to  their 
fitness  for  their  purpose,  and  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  low 
rooms  may  be,  and  often  have  been,  beautiful  in  their  own 
way  :  secondly,  that  although  more  people  could  breathe  in 
lofty  rooms,  low  ones  would  spread  the  visitors  over  three 
times  the  extent  of  flooring,  and  so  neutralize  the  objec- 
tion :  thirdly,  that  to  expect  that  all  pictures  in  a  crowded 


270       The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures. 

collection  will  be  hung  low,  when  there  are  vast  wall  spaces 
above  left  quite  unoccupied  is  futile,  because  the  pictures 
must  be  put  somewhere,  and  will  be  hung  on  that  empty 
space,  as  the  collection  increases,  whether  out  of  sight  or 
not.  When  you  sacrifice  a  hundred  masterpieces  of  paint- 
ing to  the  architectural  proportions  of  one  hall,  you  are 
guilty  of  great  waste.  The  whole  Louvre,  as  a  work  of 
art,  is  not  worth  the  tenth  part  of  the  treasures  that  are 
hidden  in  it  by  reason  of  its  irrational  construction,  and  if 
the  whole  of  that  palace  were  razed  to  the  earth,  and  a 
plain  cotton-spinning  shed  built  on  the  site  of  it,  and  the 
pictures  shown  under  the  shed,  on  low  screens  of  wood,  or 
low  brick  walls,  such  as  we  enclose  paddocks  with,  the  col- 
lection would  gain  more  by  that  change  than  it  lost  when 
the  allies  took  away  from  it  the  spoils  of  Napoleon. 

It  is  so  difficult  to  speak  on  this  subject  with  common 
patience,  that  I  hardly  dare  trust  myself  on  such  ground 
at  all.  Such  picture  hanging  as  that  in  the  Louvre  seems 
to  me  to  be  not  merely  foolish  or  thoughtless,  but  so 
entirely  irrational  as  to  be  the  work  of  something  below 
the  level  of  humanity.  No  English  word  is  strong  enough 
to  express  stupidity  of  that  calibre ;  but  a  French  word 
will,  namely,  bete.  To  buy  masterpieces,  and  then  stick 
them  up  for  hundreds  of  years  where  they  cannot  be  seen 
is  bete,  because  a  picture  is  of  no  use  if  it  is  not  seen.  If 
a  lad  went  to  study  Latin,  and  his  tutor  were  to  say  to 
him,  "  You  shall  not  hold  your  book  where  you  can  read 
it,  but  it  shall  be  placed  at  such  a  distance  from  you  as  to 
be  illegible,"  what  would  you  think  of  that  tutor  ?  Would 
you  not  say  he  was  crazy?  Well,  but  picture  hangers 
constantly  do  that.  I  being  a  student  of  art,  go  to  the 
Louvre,  and  very  much  wish  to  see  certain  pictures,  these 
pictures  are  hung  so  high  as  to  be  for  purposes  of  study 
inaccessible  to  me;  but  I  find  the  general  public,  which 
does  not  care  to  read  the  pictures,  is  perfectly  contented  to 
have  them  where  they  are ;  all  it  wants  is  to  give  one 
glance,  be  able  henceforth  to  say  it  has  "  seen "  them  (a 
polite  fib),  and  be  off  to  its  drive  and  its  dinner.  But  ask 
some  real  student  what  he  thinks  of  it ! 


The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures.      271 

In  all  practical  matters  unconnected  with  the  fine  arts 
the  right  kind  of  building  is  found  and  erected  at  once. 
Look  at  a  great  cotton-weaving  shed ;  what  a  vast  area ! 
how  well  lighted  !  and  yet  one  of  the  cheapest  of  construc- 
tions, when  once  you  have  the  ground  !  Such  a  shed 
would  be  an  ideal  gallery  ;  let  it  be  provided  with  partitions 
or  screens,  and  it  would  hold  thousands  of  pictures  !  Some 
mention  was  made  in  parliament  of  a  "quadrangle;"  is  a 
picture  gallery  to  have  a  quadrangle  because  the  colleges  at 
Oxford  have  ?  It  is  a  most  wanton  waste  of  space.  All 
that  space  should  be  covered  in.  Staircases  were  men- 
tioned also.  What  need  of  a  staircase  ?  Is  the  gallery  to 
be  necessarily  two  stories  high  ?  One  vast  ground  floor  is 
what  is  wanted.  If  you  have  two  stories  only  one  of  them 
can  be  lighted  from  above.  If,  in  addition  to  a  shed  for 
pictures,  we  can  afford  a  palatial  front  towards  the  square, 
we  should  need  staircases  to  get  to  the  upper  stories  of  our 
palace ;  but  as  we  are  planning  a  cheap  gallery  just  now, 
to  suit  the  proposed  vote  of  £100,000,  it  is  no  use  talking 
about  staircases.  The  great  thing  is  to  resolve,  first,  that 
our  gallery  shall  be  'immensely  spacious,  and  so  well 
arranged  that  every  picture  may  be  seen  perfectly.  A  low 
shed  will  accomplish  this  ;  if  we  can  afford  a  noble  palace, 
by  all  means  let  us  have  one  between  the  shed  and  the  square. 
But  what  is  most  to  be  deprecated  is  a  cheap  attempt  which 
tries  to  be  both  palace  and  gallery,  and  is  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other,  —  a  building  where  the  pictures  cannot  all  be  seen, 
which  leaves  no  room  for  expansion,  and  which  in  itself, 
with  all  its  pretensions,  is  without  importance  as  a  piece  of 
architecture. 

I  am  quite  aware  that  these  notions  will  seem  strange 
and  heretical  to  persons  accustomed  to  build  from  tradition. 
But  I  want  us  to  be  as  independent  of  tradition  in  our  gal- 
lery as  we  have  been  in  most  other  things  in  which  we 
have  succeeded.  Railway  carriages  are  not  constructed 
precisely  like  stage  coaches  ;  and  is  there  any  particular 
reason  why  picture  galleries  should  be  built  like  gentlemen's 
mansions  ? 

When  you  go  to  a  painter's  studio  and  ask  him  to  show 


272      The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures. 

you  a  picture,  he  does  not  run  upstairs  with  it  and  hang  it 
out  at  the  window  of  the  third  story  and  tell  you  to  go 
out  into  the  street  and  look  up  at  it.  No ;  he  puts  it  on  an 
easel,  level  with  your  eye,  wheels  the  easel  into  the  best 
light,  and  you  really  see  the  work.  Now  in  a  rationally 
contrived  gallery  you  ought  to  be  able  to  see  every  picture 
just  as  easily  and  comfortably  as  that.  And  if  I  and  the 
others  who  think  with  me  had  our  will  about  the  National 
Gallery,  every  picture  in  it  would  be  as  accessible  and  as 
easily  seen  as  if  it  were  still  on  the  easel  in  the  studio  of 
the  master  who  painted  it. 

So  that  if  the  object  were  to  have  a  cheap  gallery  I 
would  first  pull  down  the  present  building,  and  then,  having 
bought  a  large  space  of  land  behind  it,  proceed  to  erect  a 
vast  shed,  one  story  high,  with  a  decent  looking  stone 
front  towards  the  square,  and  plain  brick  walls  behind. 
This  shed  I  would  have  lighted  from  above  over  its  whole 
extent ;  then,  inside,  I  would  build  long  low  walls  of  par- 
tition so  as  to  divide  the  shed  into  many  corridor-like  gal- 
leries. Small  separate  rooms  would  economize  space  still 
farther,  and  would  have  the  advantage  of  isolating  each  mas- 
ter ;  but  there  is  the  practical  objection  that  each  room 
would  require  the  constant  presence  of  a  guardian.  There 
should  be  only  one  line  of  pictures.  Each  picture  should 
be  so  hung  that  its  own  horizon  line  should  be  from  five 
feet  to  five  feet  six  inches  from  the  floor.  The  walls 
should  be  covered  with  flock  paper  of  a  rich  dark  maroon 
color,  showing  a  slight,  just  perceptible  pattern,  nearly  in 
the  same  tint.  (The  paper  in  the  present  Turner  Gallery 
is  of  too  light  and  bright  a  red.)  Ample  space  should  be 
left  round  every  picture  frame.  A  good  rule  to  make 
would  be  that  every  picture  should  have  a  margin  of  bare 
wall  equivalent  to  half  its  own  breadth.  All  this  luxury  of 
floor  and  wall  space  could  scarcely  be  achieved  in  a  thin 
line  of  building  running  round  a  quadrangle,  whereas  it 
might  most  easily  be  afforded  in  a  great  shed  occupying  the 
whole  space.  We  might  easily  manage,  if  we  really  made 
it  an  object,  to  hang  every  one  of  the  national  pictures  on 
the  line.  If  a  picture  is  not  good  enough  to  be  hung  on  the 


The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures.      273 

line,  it  is  not  good  enough  to  be  in  the  national  collection. 
If  we  cannot  afford  to  hang  the  present  pictures  all  on  the 
line,  we  had  better  stop  purchasing  and  even  sell  part  of  our 
present  collection  till  we  can  afford  it.  But  it  is  nonsense 
to  talk  of  England  not  being  able  to  afford  a  few  hundred 
yards  of  low  brick  wall.  For  the  cost  of  some  common 
governmental  blunder  or  mishap,  for  one-tenth  part  of  the 
cost  of  some  useless  and  inglorious  war,  such  a  gallery 
might  be-  built  as  would  show  perfectly  and  conveniently  to 
art  students  every  picture  and  drawing  we  possess,  and 
leave  ample  space  for  the  acquisitions  of  a  coming  half- 
century. 

To  recapitulate  the  requirements  of  a  plain  picture 
shed  :  — 

1 .  It  should  be  only  one  story  high. 

2.  The  whole  area  of  its  site  should  be  entirely  covered 
in,  and  not  enclosed  by  a  quadrangle. 

3.  This  vast  floor  should  be  divided  by  low  parallel  walls 
into  long  corridors. 

4.  Every  picture  should  be  hung  at  that  height  which  in 
the  Royal  Academy  Exhibition  is  known  as  "  the  line." 

5.  The  building  should  be  perfectly  fire-proof,  the  floor 
of  tiles,  the  walls  of  brick,  the  roof  of  iron  and  glass. 

But  so  great  a  nation  as  England  ought  farther  to  desire 
that  its  Gallery  should  be  not  only  a  convenient  receptacle 
for  works  of  art,  but  also,  in  itself,  a  noble  work  of  art. 
The  wealthiest  of -nations  ought,  on  so  fitting  an  occasion 
as  this,  to  act  with  a  grandeur  becoming  her  prosperity. 
We  ought  to  have,  not  merely  a  picture  shed,  but  a  great 
Palace  of  Art.  We  ought  to  erect  something  not  only 
far  more  useful  than  the  Louvre  as  a  place  for  the  exhib- 
ition of  pictures,  but  even,  if  possible,  more  magnificent. 
We  are  perfectly  aware  of  the  extreme  costliness  of  such  a 
plan,  but  there  are  weighty  reasons  why  this  cost  ought  not 
to  be  begrudged. 

A  great  deal  of  the  effect  of  a  picture,  far  more  of  it  than 
most  people  imagine,  is  due  to  the  objects  which  surround 
it.  A  fine  picture  is  rather  a  climax  or  centre  of  splendor 

18 


274      The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures.    • 

than  splendor  in  itself.  There  is  an  art  of  multiplying 
fourfold  the  apparent  value  of  pictures  at  a  cost  which  bears 
but  slight  proportion  to  the  cost  of  the  works  themselves. 
An  artist  friend  of  mine,  passing  one  day  before  the  house 
of  a  well-known  Parisian  dealer,  observed  that  one  window 
had  been  cleared  of  everything  but  a  solitary  small  picture. 
This  was  framed  with  extreme  splendor  and  taste,  and  all 
round  nothing  was  to  be  seen  but  rich  pomegranate  colored 
velvet.  Aided  thus,  the  picture  (it  was  a  masterpiece  of 
color  by  Decamps)  glowed  exceedingly.  So  my  friend 
went  in  and  said  to  the  dealer,  "  You  have  been  taking 
particular  pains  about  that  Decamps ;  I  suppose  you  want 
a  high  price."  "  Just  so ;  I  must  have  40,000f.  for  it." 
Now,  what  that  cunning  tradesman  did  as  a  matter  of 
business  we  ought  to  do  for  the  national  pictures  from 
motives  of  a  higher  kind.  This  way  of  helping  art  by  sur- 
rounding it  well  does  not  seem  to  be  at  all  understood  by 
persons  in  authority  in  England.  Robert  Browning,  I 
imagine,  would  understand  it,  for  he  wrote  about  the  mu- 
rex  dye,  — 

"  Enough  to  furnish  Solomon 

Such  hangings  for  his  cedar  house 
That  when,  gold-robed,  he  took  the  throne 

In  that  abyss  of  blue,  the  spouse 
Might  swear  his  presence  shone 

Most  like  the  centre  spike  of  gold 
Which  burns  deep  in  the  bluebell's  womb." 

Take  the  hangings  away,  and  what  becomes  of  Solomon  ? 

The  objection  on  the  score  of  expense  is  frivolous.  If 
you  can  afford  to  spend  £14,000  on  a  Veronese  and  £9,000 
on  a  Raphael,  you  can  afford  to  surround  each  of  them  with 
a  broad  margin  of  good  pomegranate  velvet.  And  not  only 
that,  but  you  can  afford  a  gallery  for  your  paintings  so 
finished  that  the  eye  of  the  spectator  may  rest  upon  nothing 
mean  or  poor  as  he  approaches  these  precious  master- 
pieces. It  is  not  seemly  that  treasures  which  are  of  such 
immense  value  that  money  affords  no  means  of  estimating 
it  should  be  housed  in  rooms  meaner  and  more  uncomfort- 
able than  the  barest  entrance  halls  to  our  great  hotels.  In 


The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures.      275 

a  National  Gallery  the  pictures  should  be  surrounded  with 
every  thing  that  may  enhance  their  beauty  and  prove  how 
much  we  value  them.  If  the  floor  is  of  wood  it  should  be 
an  inlaid  parquet  of  various  and  beautiful  woods,  the  doors 
and  fittings  of  the  room  should  be  at  once  massive  and 
delicately  wrought,  like  the  superb  ebony  panelling  of  the 
Salon  Carre.  But  as  there  is  a  grave  objection  to  the 
employment  of  wood  in  picture  galleries  on  the  score  of 
danger  from  fire,  we  should  be  very  lavish  of  the  finest 
marbles  and  metals.  Minor  decorative  arts  should  be 
called  into  requisition  everywhere,  as  freely  as  they  have 
been  in  the  new  Houses  of  Parliament.  Large  pictures 
which  cannot  be  seen  near  should  be  guarded  by  advancing 
enclosures  of  the  most  artistic  wrought  iron  railing,  full  of 
the  most  quaint  and  graceful  fancies,  and  the  name  of  the 
artificer  himself,  notof  the  firm  which  employed  him,  should 
be  legibly  engraven  on  the  work  and  on  the  marble  pave- 
ment in  which  it  was  fixed.  All  the  floors  should  be  of 
marble  or  encaustic  tiles,  and  the  utmost  variety  of  design 
should  be  everywhere  encouraged,  no  two  doors  alike,  no 
two  pieces  of  railing  alike,  no  two  floor  patterns  alike.  The 
doors  should  be  of  bronze  with  a  bas-relief  in  every  panel. 

As  a  Palace  of  Art  ought  to  have  a  magnificent  front  to- 
wards Trafalgar  Square,  the  low  picture  shed  (which  I  would 
always  retain  for  its  utility,  however  magnificently  it  might 
be  finished),  would  not  afford  height  enough  to  look  grand 
from  Charing  Cross  ;  therefore  the  whole  site  of  the  present 
building  should  be  occupied  by  a  very  lofty  edifice,  four  or 
five  stories  high,  comprising,  first,  the  ground  floor,  a  vast 
entrance  hall  giving  access  to  all  the  corridors  in  the  pic- 
ture shed,  and  furnished  with  the  finest  specimens  of  artistic 
furniture  that  could  be  collected ;  this  hall  should  be  hung 
with  tapestry,  and  should  contain,  on  tables,  a  collection  of 
small  works  of  art,  such  as  statuettes,  cameos,  medallions, 
gems,  &c.  At  each  end  of  the  hall  a  staircase  should  lead 
to  the  upper  stories,  where  the  drawings  and  prints  belong- 
ing to  the  nation  should  be  exhibited  in  frames,  and  under 
glass,  like  those  in  the  Louvre. 

At  least  two  long  corridors  in  the  shed  should  be  devoted 


276      The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures. 

to  sculpture.  All  the  sculpture  now  in  the  British  Museum 
should  be  housed  there.  It  greatly  diminishes  the  effect  of 
our  national  art  collections  to  keep  them  divided,  and  as 
the  British  Museum  is  in  great  want  of  space,  it  would  be 
a  charity  to  relieve  it.  We  have  now,  on  the  whole,  a  fine 
collection  of  sculpture,  though  still  a  very  incomplete  one  ; 
it  cannot  in  its  present  situation  expand  farther,  for  it  has 
already  overflowed  the  building  and  occupied  the  colonnades 
outside.  It  is  surprising  that  those  who  have  influence  in 
such  matters  should  not  be  more  eager  to  seize  so  excellent 
an  opportunity  for  uniting  our  art  collections,  as  this  recon- 
struction of  the  National  Gallery  will  offer.  It  is  an 
opportunity  that  is  not  likely  ever  to  occur  again  in  our 
time.  There  appears  to  be  an  impression  that  sculpture, 
especially  the  Egyptian  and  Assyrian,  is  not  so  much  of 
artistic  as  antiquarian  and  historical  interest,  so  it  is  put  in 
the  British  Museum,  near  the  great  national  library.  But 
the  fact  is,  that  no  national  gallery  of  art  can  be  complete 
without  a  collection  of  sculpture,  and  also  that  the  sculpture 
of  Egypt  and  Nineveh,  considered  simply  as  art,  is  of  the 
very  greatest  interest,  and,  in  its  own  way,  of  most 
remarkable  merit.  The  distinction  between  what  ought  to 
be  put  in  the  British  Museum,  and  what  in  the  National 
Gallery,  is  so  easily  made  as  to  be  self-evident.  It  makes 
itself.  We  have  only  to  draw  the  line  where  fine  art 
begins.  All  antiquities  of  the  nature  of  fine  art,  and  illus- 
trating the  history  of  fine  art,  should  be  placed  in  the 
National  Gallery ;  all  antiquities  having  historical,  but  not 
artistic  interest,  should  remain  in  the  Museum. 

As  the  study  of  art  is  very  hard  and  tiring  work,  the 
comfort  of  visitors  should  be  attended  to.  A  desire  was 
expressed  in  parliament  that  there  should  be  comfortable 
seats.  This  is  very  right ;  most  visitors  to  the  Louvre 
regret  that  capital  ottoman  which  used  to  be  before  the 
great  Veronese.  But  it  is  not  well  to  put  ottomans  in  the 
middle  of  rooms  where  pictures  are  exhibited :  they  often 
interfere  with  study.  We  wish  to  retire  to  a  certain  dis- 
tance, and  find  the  ottoman,  with  the  crinolines  upon  it,  in 
the  way.  It  is  better  to  fix  seats  near  the  wall  on  each 


The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures.      277 

side.  If  the  pictures  were  separated  by  broad  clear  spaces, 
a  large  easy  chair  might  be  put,  with  its  back  to  the  wall, 
under  each  of  those  empty  spaces. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  style  of  architecture 
which  we  ought  to  choose.  The  perpendicular  Gothic  was 
right  for  the  new  Houses  of  Parliament,  because  peculiarly 
national,  and  fit  to  receive  a  great  heraldic  record  of  the 
chiefs  of  the  nation.  But  no  style  of  Gothic  has  any  his- 
torical connection  with  good  painting,  or  with  any  sculpture 
in  which  real  form  has  been  developed.  All  the  traditions 
of  modern  painting  and  sculpture  are  inseparably  interwoven 
with  the  renaissance  movement  in  architecture.  No  Goth 
could  ever  draw  the  figure.  The  real  study  of  the  figure 
was  itself  a  renaissance  movement.  Renaissance  architect- 
ural forms  occur  continually  in  the  pictures  and  studies  of 
the  greatest  masters,  Gothic  forms  hardly  ever.  Our  Art 
Palace  should  be  of  renaissance  architecture.  All-powerful 
associations  settle  this  for  us.  That  architecture  alone  will 
permit  of  a  consistent  commemoration  of  art  history.  The 
front  of  our  Palace  should  be  a  great  record.  On  inserted 
slabs  of  marble  should  be  inscribed  the  names  of  great  art- 
ists, in  legible  Roman  characters,  and  the  names  also  of 
great  patrons  and  friends  of  art.  In  a  hundred  niches 
should  be  placed  their  statues.  And  large  panels  might  be 
filled  with  imperishable  tile  paintings,  or  with .  works  like 
De  Triqueti's  Marmor  Homericum. 

Proposals  for  a  new  palace  in  London  are  not  likely  to 
receive  much  consideration  at  a  time  when  we  have  not  yet 
quite  recovered  from  certain  feelings  of  disappointment  and 
annoyance  about  the  new  Houses  of  Parliament.  Much 
has  been  said  against  that  building,  both  by  people  who 
hated  architecture  in  general,  and  could  not  see  the  sense 
of  spending  so  much  "  foolish  money,"  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  by  people  who  loved  architecture,  but  did  not  love 
the  perpendicular  style.  'But  the  new  Palace  of  West- 
minster is,  on  the  whole,  an  effort  of  which  we  have  many 
reasons  to  be  proud.  There  was  very  much  real  grandeur 
in  the  idea,  though  Sir  Charles  Barry,  like  many  men  of 
talent,  had  power  to  plan  a  great  work,  but  not  invention 


278       The  Housing  of  National  Art  Treasures. 

enough  to  carry  it  through  with  that  inexhaustible  variety 
and  fertility  of  resource  in  matters  of  detail  which  is  the 
privilege  of  genius  alone.  It  is  not  equal  to  the  works  of 
the  great  Gothic  times ;  but  I  am  not  aware  of  any  per- 
pendicular architecture  which  is  better.  The  objection  to 
it  is  an  objection  to  its  style.  Barry  may  have  done  wrong 
in  choosing  that  style,  but  it  was  adapted  to  the  habits  of 
our  workmen  and  the  condition  of  our  minor  arts.  Its 
enrichment  is  mechanical,  but  we  are  mechanical  also.  On 
the  whole,  we  may  accept  the  Houses  of  Parliament  as  the 
grandest  achievement  which  in  all  likelihood  could  haye 
been  produced  in  the  beginning  of  the  Victorian  age ;  and 
so  far  from  feeling  ashamed  of  it,  we  have  a  right  to  con- 
gratulate ourselves  that  the  legislature  is  housed  with  a 
grandeur  befitting  its  great  traditions.  I  have  said  else- 
where that  the  building  was  "  a  lamentable  and  costly 
example  of  mechanical  enrichment,"  because  I  dislike  that 
style  ;  but  I  applaud  the  resolution  to  have  as  grand  a 
building  as  we  could  get  in  our  age,  and  the  willingness  to 
incur  the  necessary  sacrifices.  Let  us  persevere  in  the 
same  large  spirit  with  advancing  power !  Let  us  vote 
eagerly,  as  the  old  Florentines  voted  for  their  Campanile  ! 
Let  us  eclipse  the  Louvre  !  We  are  the  richest  nation  in 
Europe :  let  us  have  the  grandest  art  palace ;  we  are  the 
most  practical :  let  us  have  the  best ! 


Fame.  279 


XIV. 

FAME. 

A  FRENCH  gentleman  whom  I  know  very  well  had 
!~^  a  daughter  —  she  is  now  dead  —  who  was  distin- 
guished as  one  of  the  most  brilliant  performers  on  the 
pianoforte  in  all  France.  Her  father  was  rich,  and  be- 
longed to  that  class  of  society  which  considers  that  its 
daughters  cannot  earn  money  in  any  way  whatever  with- 
out loss  of  caste,  so  the  lady  could  not  be  a  professional 
musician  as  she  ought  to  have  been,  but  was  left  to  develop 
her  wonderful  talent  for  the  delight  of  a  few  private 
friends.  Such  a  position  was  essentially  false.  When 
Nature  endows  a  human  being  with  supreme  musical 
genius,  it  is  intended,  not  for  the  possessor  alone,  nor  for 
any  one  circle  of  private  friends,  but  for  the  human  race. 
And  the  desire  for  publicity  grew  in  the  girl's  mind  as 
she  rose  to  the  heights  of  her  art.  It  became  necessary 
to  give  weekly  musical  soirees  for  the  exhibition  of  her 
talent.  After  a  while  this  no  longer  sufficed,  and  she 
performed  in  a  few  public  concerts  of  the  highest  order. 
Some  said  that  this  was  vanity,  and  not  a  ladylike  ten- 
dency at  all.  But  was  it  not  the  irresistible  impulse  of 
a  true  genius  ?  Can  a  great  instrumentalist  be  intended 
by  Nature  to  perform  for  his  own  selfish  pleasure  ?  Peo- 
ple are  no  more  endowed  with  music  that  they  may  play 
to  themselves  than  with  tongues  that  they  may  talk  to 
themselves.  And  when  a  nobleman  of  high  rank,  like  the 
Marquis  of  Candia  (commonly  known  as  Mario),  is  gifted 
by  nature  with  so  admirable  a  natural  instrument,  we 
have  all  a  kind  of  claim  to  the  delight  of  it,  as  we  have 
to  the  light  of  the  stars.  And  though  the  instinctive  thirst 
for  fame  may  be  often  quenched  by  the  coldness  of  high 


280 


Fame. 


caste,  there  is  such  an  appetite,  either  active  or  dormant 
in  all  intellects  to  which  fame  naturally  belongs.     A  ce 
tain  degree  of  fame  is  essential  to  the  free  exercise  of  cei 
tain  forces  within  us,  and  where  there  is  a  constitutions 
indifference  to  it  those  forces  have  no  existence.     In  tl 
course  of  this  chapter  I  shall  show  that  the  desire  for 
widely  spread  celebrity,  so  commonly  reproached  against 
the  artistic  class  as  a  weakness  or  a  defect,  is  perfectly 
rational  and  right,  and  means  no  more  than  this,  that  all 
persons  belonging  to  that  class  desire  a  field   sufficiently 
ample  for  the  free  exercise  of  their  especial  functions  —  a 
feeling  they  have  in  common  with  many  other  classes 

It  is  necessary,  however,  to  draw  a  trenchant  distinction 
between  this  right  desire  for  fame,  and  the  morbid  or  fool- 
ish longing  for  it  on  its  own  account.  It  is  one  thing  to 
desire  to  be  celebrated,  that  we  may  work  with  due  effect, 
and  another  to  desire  only  that  we  may  be  celebrated. 
But  even  the  most  diseased  and  degraded  craving  for 
notoriety  is  often  the  perversion  of  a  true  instinct  uncon- 
scious of  its  own  import. 

Fame  of  very  different  degrees  and  very  different  orders 
is  necessary  to  men  in  different  situations.  Men  of  the 
highest  social  rank  are  immensely  famous  without  the 
least  effort  on  their  part ;  and  yet  as  they  are  saved  all 
that  visible  seeking  after  fame  which  characterizes  artists 
of  all  kinds,  they  are  never  spoken  of  as  celebrated,  celeb- 
rity is  so  inevitable  to  them.  We  say  of  Landseer  that 
he  is  a  celebrated  painter,  but  not  of  Victoria  that  she  is 
a  celebrated  queen,  because  painters  are  for  the  most  part 
obscure,  whereas  all  monarchs  are  celebrated  by  the  mere 
fact  of  their  position.  They  cannot  help  being  famous: 
their  names  are  on  every  one's  lips,  whether  they  will  or 
no.  And  they  are  famous  for  this  very  obvious  reason, 
that  a  great  glare  and  blaze  of  fame  penetrating  into 
every  nook  and  cranny  of  their  dominions  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  the  most  ordinary  exercise  of  their  function 
of  sovereignty.  I,  therefore,  take  the  fame  of  the  mon- 
arch to  begin  with,  as  the  most  obvious  instance  of  func- 
tional or  necessary  celebrity,  the  only  celebrity  in  whatever 


Fame.  281 

class  which  rational  men  desire ;  and  I  think  that,  in 
descending  the  social  scale,  I  shall  find  no  difficulty  in 
demonstrating  that  the  desire  for  fame,  so  far  from  being 
peculiar  to  the  artistic  class,  is  common  to  all  men  in 
their  several  spheres,  each  desiring  that  degree  and  order 
of  renown  which  is  suitable  to  his  position,  and  necessary 
to  his  forceful  and  effectual  life  therein. 

I  find  no  order  of  fame  so  certain  as  that  which  is 
attached  to  a  man's  social  position.  The  renown  of  mon- 
archs  is,  of  course,  the  best  and  most  obvious  example  of 
this  kind  of  celebrity,  yet  it  is  not  confined  to  any  royal 
or  noble  class,  but  belongs  in  minor  degrees  to  all  rich  or 
locally  influential  men.  The  fame  of  rulers  is  necessarily 
co-extensive  with  the  number  of  people  they  govern  ;  and 
as  the  Emperor  Napoleon  is  inevitably  known  to  all 
Frenchmen,  so  also  is  the  cotton  manufacturer  known  to 
his  hands,  the  landlord  to  his  tenants,  and  the  schoolmas- 
ter to  his  scholars.  Men  also  become  known  to  us  when 
we  have  need  of  them ;  and  those  who  from  their  occupa- 
tion render  occasional  services  to  large  numbers  of  people 
are  of  course  known  to  large  numbers.  Thus,  we  find 
numerous  classes  of  society,  every  member  of  which  is 
inevitably  famous,  more  or  less,  if  he  discharges  the  ordi- 
nary functions  of  his  office.  The  governor  is  famous  in 
the  sphere  of  his  government,  and  many  laborers  in  the 
humblest  occupations  acquire  a  degree  of  celebrity  which 
is  not  called  celebrity,  only  because  it  is  so  intensely  local, 
but  which,  if  judged  by  the  number  of  persons  reached 
by  it,  is  as  great  as  the  fame  of  many  true  poets  and  phi- 
losophers. 

If  we  examine  the  social  organization  of  any  populous 
town,  we  shall  find  many  persons  there  who  live  in  the 
broad  light  of  a  local  fame  of  a  very  intense  and  pene- 
trating kind.  Fifty  miles  off,  their  names  are  scarcely 
known ;  but  in  their  own  neighborhood  they  enjoy  a  well 
recognized  and  brightly  focussed  reputation.  Like  the 
brilliant  chandelier  of  a  ball-room,  their  glory  shines  with, 
wonderful  splendor  on  one  well-packed  crowd,  but  is  pre- 
vented by  opaque  walls  from  reaching  the  outer  world. 


282  Fame. 

There  is  the  principal  land-owner  first,  who  cannot  help 
being  locally  famous,  however  modest  and  retiring  his  dis- 
position ;  there  is  next  the  most  important  clergyman,  who 
is  known  to  everybody  in  the  place,  and  the  smaller  incum- 
bents and  curates,  whose  names  are  household  words  at  a 
thousand  tea-tables,  where  they  supply  an  inexhaustible 
topic  of  conversation.  There  is  also,  probably,  a  banker, 
and  there  are  sure  to  be  one  or  two  solicitors  also  known 
to  everybody,  though  less  talked  about  than  the  clergy. 
And  the  fame  of  the  local  surgeons  is  as  certain  as  disease 
and  death.  And  the  principal  tradesmen  —  the  druggist, 
the  tailor,  the  draper,  the  fashionable  boot  and  shoe  maker, 
the  grocer,  the  butcher  —  are  all  absolutely  necessary  to 
the  community,  and  well  known  to  it  both  personally  and 
by  name.  In  a  country  town  there  is  no  obscurity,  save 
for  the  poor.  All  rich  proprietors,  all  prosperous  trades- 
men, are  known  to  thousands ;  and,  as  a  general  rule,  you 
will  not  find  these  people  shrinking  from  the  degree  of 
publicity  which  naturally  belongs  to  their  station.  The 
land-owner  will  be  a  magistrate,  and  preside  at  public  meet- 
ings ;  the  clergyman  preaches,  of  course,  in  public  every 
Sunday,  and  will  speak  also  from  the  platform  of  the 
Literary  Institute  when  called  upon;  the  attorney,  how- 
ever bashful  by  nature,  will  not  shrink  from  the  publicity 
incident  to  his  profession ;  and  as  for  the  tradesmen,  they 
will  print  circulars  and  advertise.  Of  all  these  locally 
famous  people  not  a  soul  perhaps  cares  about  celebrity  in 
itself;  but  their  several  positions  absolutely  require  some 
degree  of  it,  or  the  whole  business  of  the  town  would  come 
to  a  standstill.  And  if  you  were  to  take  the  most  retiring 
of  townsmen  and  make  an  artist  of  him,  whether  poet, 
painter,  or  musician,  the  man  would  immediately  desire  a 
more  extended  recognition  than  his  own  little  neighbor- 
hood could  afford,  for  the  simple  reason  that  a  commu- 
nity, which  is  large  enough  to  keep  a  thriving  grocer  or 
a  prosperous  tailor,  might  be  far  too  little  to  supply  culti- 
.vated  people  in  sufficient  numbers  to  sustain  a  painter  of 
pictures,  or  pay  for  successive  editions  of  musical  or  poet- 
ical compositions.  The  desire  for  extensive  fame,  which 


Fame.  283 

characterizes  the  artist  class  in  our  day,  is,  I  believe,  first 
of  all  the  sense  of  a  commercial  necessity.  Small  popu- 
lations afford  no  market  for  intellectual  works,  because 
the  persons  capable  of  appreciating  such  works  are  so 
extremely  rare  that  they  have  to  be  sought  out  from 
amongst  millions.  But  as  the  feelings  and  aims  of  the 
Florentine  artists  were  local  because  they  could  find  appre- 
ciation and  remuneration  enough  in  their  own  locality,  so, 
I  imagine,  our  own  artists  would  generally  content  them- 
selves with  local  recognition  if  such  recognition  could 
bring  them,  in  wealth  and  honor,  an  adequate  reward  for 
their  labors.  The  difference  between  a  locally  celebrated 
man  —  as,  for  instance,  a  popular  clergyman  —  and  a 
widely  celebrated  one  —  as,  for  instance,  a  poet  —  often 
consists  only  in  this,  that  the  persons  whom  the  celebrity 
has  rerched  are,  in  the  one  case,  concentrated  in  a  single 
parish  or  diocese,  and,  in  the  other,  scattered  very  thinly 
over  a  kingdom.  The  difference  of  number  is  not  likely 
to  be  on  the  side  of  the  poet.  For  the  persons  who  men- 
tally receive  the  poet  are  of  a  very  rare  order,  real  readers 
of  poetry  being  a  very  small  and  a  very  peculiar  class ; 
whereas  the  hearers  of  sermons  are  of  all  classes,  and 
may  be  concentrated  in  great  numbers  in  a  single  parish. 
The  poet,  however,  is  considered  hungry  after  fame  if  he 
wishes  his  thoughts  to  be  received  by  a  few  thousand  per- 
sons, whereas  the  same  natural  desire  on  the  part  of  a 
clergyman  is  called  a  "wish  for  an  adequate  sphere  of 
usefulness."  The  preacher  will,  in  England  at  least,  al- 
ways find  more  hearers  than  the  poet  will  find  readers ; 
but  it  is  presumed  in  favor  of  the  preacher  that  he  utters 
his  thought  from  a  higher  motive  than  the  poet.  Yet 
is  it  not  quite  possible  that  a  poet  may  wish  to  raise  men 
to  higher  views  than  were  before  attainable  by  them  ? 
and  could  any  poet,  with  such  a  noble  conception  of  his 
calling,  feel  himself  justified  in  dedicating  his  whole  life 
to  it,  unless  he  saw  good  reason  for  believing  that  his 
efforts  would  not  altogether  fail  of  their  effect  upon  the 
world  ?  When  the  clergyman  flattens  his  manuscript  ser- 
mon on  the  velvet  pulpit-cushion,  he  is  sure  of  his  audi- 


284  Fame. 

ence,  and  knows  that  he  is  fulfilling  an  undeniable  function 
in  the  world.  The  artist  enjoys  no  such  satisfactory  feeling 
until  he  is  what  men  call  famous.  Until  fame  comes,  the 
author  does  not  feel  sure  of  a  single  reader,  nor  even 
of  a  publisher.  The  written  thought  may  never  see  the 
light.  And  the  painter  who  is  not  famous  is  scarcely 
more  sure  of  producing  any  effect  on  his  fellow-creatures, 
for  the  public  will  not  look  at  what  he  does,  nor  the  hang- 
ers in  the  exhibitions  put  it  where  it  can  be  seen.  For 
these  men  to  desire  fame  is  therefore  not  more  indicative 
of  vanity  or  weakness  in  them  than  it  would  be  in  a 
clergyman  to  desire  a  church.  An  artist  without  reputa- 
tion is  like  a  pastor  without  a  flock.  Fame  is  the  neces- 
sary condition  for  the  due  discharge  of  his  function  of 
artist.  What  the  parish  is  to  the  parson,  with  its  thou- 
sands of  inhabitants,  fame  is  to  the  poet  or  painter  with  the 
thousands  of  readers  or  spectators  that  it  brings  him. 

Having  devoted  myself  to  an  art  which  needs  fame  as 
one  of  the  conditions  of  its  satisfactory  pursuit,  I  have,  of 
course,  thought  a  good  deal  about  it.  Personally,  I  can 
see  nothing  desirable  in  it,  except  the  privilege  it  gives  of 
choosing  one's  friends  from  the  most  cultivated  class.  As 
an  artist,  however,  I  look  upon  fame,  or  at  least  a  consid- 
erable degree  of  reputation,  as  a  thing  to  be  won  at  the 
cost  of  any  labor  or  sacrifice,  except  the  sacrifice  of  private 
honor.  And  as  a  prudent  general  examines  with  his  tel- 
escope a  fortress  as  yet  distant  which  he  knows  he  will  be 
compelled  to  take,  so  I  have  endeavored  to  ascertain  what 
this  Fame  really  is,  and  whether  its  outworks  are  quite  so 
formidable  as  they  look. 

I  have  no  concern  except  with  the  fame  of  artists.  The 
fame  of  men  of  action,  soldiers  and  discoverers,  rests  on 
very  different  grounds.  Great  actions  partake  in  some 
degree  of  the  undeniableness  of  money.  In  these  things, 
however,  it  is  achievement  alone  which  tells,  and  this 
achievement  is  an  affair  of  luck  as  much  as  capacity : 
for,  though  no  man  without  very  quick  and  ready  wits 
ever  succeeded  in  passing  for  a  first-rate  soldier,  there  are 
good  reasons  for  supposing  that  the  most  celebrated  are 


Fame.  285 

not  necessarily  the  best.  The  luck  of  escaping  bullets 
has  as  much  to  do  with  military  reputation  as  the  courage 
to  face  them.  If  Wellington  had  been  shot  in  his  first 
Indian  battle,  we  should  never  have  heard  of  him, 
and  it  may  easily  have  happened  that  still  greater  mil- 
itary geniuses  than  Wellington  have  met  death  and 
oblivion  in  a  first  campaign.  And  then  there  is  the  ques- 
tion of  where  a  man  may  happen  to  be  posted.  I  have 
no  doubt  that  there  were  at  least  a  score  of  officers  in  the 
English  army  before  Sebastopol  any  one  of  whom,  had  he 
been  commander-in-chief,  would  have  earned  immortal 
fame  ;  but  they  were  kept  down  in  subordinate  positions, 
and  their  talents  were  hidden  in  the  trenches  like  glow- 
worms in  the  ditch.  I  do  not  envy  men  of  action  their 
chances  of  fame.  No  fame  is  so  brilliant  as  theirs,  but 
none  is  so  precarious,  none  so  dependent  upon  the  merest 
accidents  and  the  most  uncontrollable  conditions.  The 
populace  idolizes  the  successful  general,  and  growls  with 
unreasoning  fury  at  the  one  who  does  not  succeed.  If 
Grouchy  had  been  at  Waterloo,  and  the  Prussians  stayed 
away,  is  it  quite  sure  that  the  day  would  have  been 
ours  ?  By  dint  of  extraordinary  energy  and  genius,  but 
aided  also  by  Fortune,  our  hero  won  for  us  that  great  day. 
All  I  say  is,  what  would  the  genius  have  been  without  the 
luck,  and  would  the  British  public  have  worshipped  Wel- 
lington as  it  does  if  the  luck  had  gone  against  him  ?  Peo- 
ple wonder  at  the  Great  Duke's  modesty  :  but  no  general 
not  utterly  spoiled  by  adulation  could  think  of  his  success 
otherwise  than  modestly,  recognizing,  as  every  thinking 
man  must,  that,  though  great  talents  and  courage  are  in- 
deed necessary  to  the  acquisition  of  military  fame,  unusu- 
ally good  luck  is,  at  least,  equally  necessary ;  so  that  when 
people  shout  about  the  victor's  car,  they  are  extolling,  not 
only  Caesar's  faculties,  but  Caesar's  fortune. 

The  fame  of  writers  and  painters  is  much  more  within 
their  own  control.  There  are  still  the  chances  of  disease 
or  accident,  but  only  such  chances  as  all  men  equally 
share ;  they  need  not  incur  the  hazards  of  the  battle-field 
unless  they  voluntarily  seek  them.  Nor  is  the  accident  of 


286  Fame. 

position  of  such  vital  consequence  to  them  as  to  soldiers. 
It  is  certainly  a  great  advantage  to  a  painter  to  exhibit 
his  works  on  the  line  of  the  Academy  ;  but  a  good  picture 
of  sufficiently  general  interest  to  attract  the  public  will 
find  spectators  outside  of  the  Academy  walls.  It  is  also 
an  advantage  to  an  author  to  have  money  enough  to  pub- 
lish his  first  book  ;  but  it  is  easier  to  get  a  book  out  than 
to  obtain  the  command  of  a  great  military  expedition,  — 
the  only  post  where  the  highest  qualities  of  generalship 
have  a  fair  chance  of  displaying  themselves.  The  sense 
that  their  talents  have  some  chance  of  making  their  own 
way  without  any  commission  from  constituted  authorities 
is  enough  to  console  the  workers  in  art  for  many  incon- 
veniences of  their  condition.  It  is  also  a  wonderful  stim- 
ulus to  exertion  to  feel  that  our  own  ideas  depend  on 
ourselves  alone  for  their  expression.  A  good  writer  or 
painter  can  express  his  own  genius  much  more  easily  than 
a  good  soldier,  for  the  writer  only  needs  a  sheet  of  paper, 
and  the  painter  a  piece  of  canvas,  whereas  the  soldier 
must  have  an  army  and  a  battle-field  at  a  cost  of  millions. 
Poor  inventors  in  the  mechanical  arts  are  also  less  fortu- 
nate than  painters  in  this  respect,  when  they  can  find  no 
capitalist  courageous  enough  to  pay  for  the  visible  realiza- 
tion of  their  plans. 

We  have  seen  that  a  considerable  fame  may  exist  in  a 
small  geographical  space,  if  we  estimate  fame  by  the  num- 
bers of  persons  whom  it  has  reached ;  whereas  another 
kind  of  fame,  not  reaching  in  reality  a  greater  number  of 
persons,  may  be  scattered  over  a  whole  kingdom.  We 
may,  therefore,  consider  fame  as  spreading  over  human 
society  superficially,  or  penetrating  it  vertically.  There  is 
superficial  fame  affecting  only  the  cultivated  cream  of 
mankind,  and  cubic  fame  with  its  foundations  deep  in  the 
lowest  ranks  of  the  uneducated.  A  religious  teacher,  a 
military  commander,  a  pugilist,  or  a  rope-dancer,  may 
derive  satisfaction  from  the  suffrages  of  the  ignorant,  be- 
cause they  afford  for  them  the  best  proof  of  incontestable 
success ;  but  a  great  discoverer  in  natural  science,  or  a 
great  inventor  in  fine  art,  derives  a  more  intense  and  com- 


Fame.  287 

plete  satisfaction  from  the  testimony  of  a  very  few  isolated 
individuals  of  high  and  peculiar  culture  than  from  the 
thoughtless  applause  of  thousands.  The  great  artist,  the 
great  mathematician,  and  the  great  naturalist,  appeal 
always  to  the  few ;  the  great  preacher,  conqueror,  fighter, 
or  physical  wonder,  appeals  to  every  human  being  with  a 
soul  to  be  saved  or  a  body  to  be  bayonetted  or  beaten. 
The  fame  of  Joseph  Smith  the  Mormonite  prophet,  Na- 
poleon Bonaparte,  and  Tom  Sayers,  is  cubic,  and  goes  deep 
down  into  the  most  ignorant  strata  of  society ;  the  fame  of 
Humboldt,  Arago,  and  Turner,  barely  gets  below  the 
polish  of  the  surface.  The  fame  of  personages  connected 
with  religious  history,  whether  the  religion  be  false  or  true, 
is  sure  to  reach  down  to  the  most  ignorant  peasantry. 
The  most  unlettered  fishermen  in  Italian  bays  have 
heard  of  innumerable  saints  ;  the  idlest  and  poorest  Turk 
has  heard  of  Mahomet ;  the  most  ignorant  Mormonite  re- 
veres the  name  of  Joseph  Smith.  I  mean  no  injury  to 
the  name  of  a  good  man  called  John  Wesley,  when  I  al- 
lude to  his  fame  here  as  of  the  same  nature  essentially  as 
that  of  a  legendary  saint  or  Morm/m  prophet ;  for  all  these 
celebrities,  whether  the  result  of  personal  worth,  or  mythic 
tradition,  or  pure  imposture,  are  perpetuated  and  embalmed 
by  the  religious  sentiment  of  the  people,  the  strongest  and 
most  enduring  of  all  the  aids  to  fame.  Nor  must  the  Eng- 
lish reader  be  angry  with  me  for  alluding  to  Joseph  Smith 
as  a  famous  religious  founder.  Hundreds  of  thousands 
believe  in  his  name,  and  tens  of  millions  have  heard  it. 
That  colossal  renown,  based  on  an  impudent  forgery, 
already  towers  far  above  the  fame  of  our  greatest  artists 
and  men  of  science ;  and,  firmly  rooted  in  the  ignorant 
masses  of  mankind,  may  last  a  thousand  years  with  power 
unimpaired.  Yes,  that  vulgar  Mahomet  of  the  West,  with 
his  gross,  ungrammatical  forgery,  has  secured  such  a  place 
in  the  world's  history  as  none  but  the  founder  of  a  creed 
can  hope  for.  He  has  founded  a  great  fame,  deep  in  the 
safe  rock  of  ignorance,  and  the  bright  waves  of  wit  and 
culture  shall  shatter  themselves  for  ages  against  its  mighty 
walls  in  vain. 


288  Fame, 

The  fame  of  fighting  men  reaches  the  poor  also.  In 
this  respect  the  Emperor  Napoleon,  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton, Garibaldi  the  patriot,  and  Tom  Sayers  the  pugilist, 
stand  on  the  same  footing.  Their  success  appeals  to  the 
same  popular  and  universal  instinct.  They  have  all  fought 
and  conquered.  Now,  to  hear  that  one  man  has  beaten 
another,  or  that  one  dog  has  torn  another,  or  that  one  cock 
has  killed  another  in  the  cockpit,  gives  to  the  great  human 
combative  instinct  an  intense  and  intelligible  pleasure. 
Everybody  can  understand  the  fact  of  conquest ;  every- 
body feels  a  thrill  of  admiration  for  the  conqueror.  There- 
fore his  fame  reaches  the  poor.  And  if  fame  is  to  be 
great  amongst  them,  its  grounds  must  be  intelligible.  A 
great  pugilist,  or  even  a  great  rope-dancer,  like  Blondin 
for  instance,  may  achieve  popular  fame,  where  a  great  sci- 
entific discoverer  cannot ;  for  if  the  "  Staleybridge  Infant " 
gets  mauled,  the  people  understand  the  mauling  and  ad- 
mire the  mauler ;  if  Blondin  runs  along  a  rope  suspended 
at  a  dizzy  height,  every  laborer  and  brick-layer  appre- 
ciates the  feat ;  if  Leotard  leaps  along  swinging  trapezes, 
every  schoolboy  can  understand  the  marvellous  agility  dis- 
played in  his  flying  form.  Haydon  was  jealous  of  Tom 
Thumb  ;  but  if  Haydon  instead  of  being  a  very  bad  painter 
had  been  the  greatest  artist  that  ever  lived  on  earth,  he 
would  have  shown  great  ignorance  of  human  nature  in  being 
jealous  of  his  tiny  rival.  The  grounds  of  Titian's  fame 
are  appreciable  only  by  one  person  in  a  hundred  thousand ; 
the  grounds  of  Tom  Thumb's  fame  are  understood  at  a 
glance  by  every  child.  How  immensely  famous  that  wee 
thing  is  !  Like  a  king  born  in  the  purple,  he  had  notoriety 
for  his  birthright ;  and  what  so  many  big  men  toil  for  in 
vain,  that  little  creature  took  without  an  effort. 

And  authors,  then,  how  far  down  does  their  fame  pene- 
trate ?  We  know  something  of  its  merely  superficial 
extent.  We  know  that  Shakspeare's  name  has  gone  into 
many  lands,  but  we  rarely  think  how  few  people  honor  it 
in  our  own.  One  or  two  authors  have  reached  the  people, 
—  Burns,  for  instance,  in  Ayrshire,  and  Tim  Bobbin,  in 
Lancashire ;  but  Charles  Dickens  scarcely  gets  down  be- 


Fame.  289 

low  the  lower  grade  of  the  middle  class ;  and  Scott  and 
Byron  are  totally  unknown  to  the  English  peasantry.  Of 
course,  Tennyson  and  Thackeray  are  only  known  to  the 
comparatively  cultivated  classes.  The  hard-handed  tiller 
of  the  soil  never  heard  of  their  names  ;  even  the  pale  fac- 
tory operative,  unless  he  frequent  the  Mechanics'  Institute, 
is  as  yet  untouched  by  the  light  of  their  celebrity.  I  have 
mentioned  elsewhere  that  my  servant  Thursday,  who  is  by 
birth  a  very  creditable  specimen  of  an  English  peasant, 
and  the  son  of  a  gamekeeper  on  a  great  estate,  had  never 
heard  of  Sir  Walter  Scott ;  *  nor  have  I  any  reason  for 
believing  that  the  great  novelist's  fame  has  ever  yet  pen- 
etrated Thursday's  native  valley.  But  the  fame  of  Tom 
Sayers  shines  there  in  perfect  splendor.  The  Mormon 
prophet  is  known  there  also.  So,  of  course,  are  Bonaparte, 
and  Wellington,  and  Wesley. 

When  we  say  that  a  poet  is  famous,  we  mean  that  he  is 
known  to  the  reading  public  ;  rather  a  small  public  in  com- 
parison to  the  human  race.  But  with  this  small  public 
even  the  best  writers  must  content  themselves.  They  can- 
not aspire  to  the  universal  fame  of  kings,  generals,  prophets, 
pugilists,  and  dwarfs.  At  this  present  hour  the  name  of 
Tom  Sayers  is  known  to  more  Englishmen  than  the  name 
of  William  Shakspeare. 

Still  the  fame  of  artists  whether  in  words,  or  sounds,  or 
colors,  is  extensive  and  enduring  in  its  way,  surviving 
often  a  great  many  very  noisy  victories.  Europe  and  Asia 
are  full  of  battle-fields  which  the  world  remembers  no 
more;  but  the  masterpieces  of  literature  lie  open  every 
day  before  a  few  true  students,  and  the  masterpieces  of 
color-art  receive  the  continual  homage  of  admiration,  mur- 
muring everlastingly  in  their  august  presence,  generation 
after  generation. 

*  A  more  striking  fact  is  that  Scott  is  all  but  unknown  to  the  Highland 
peasantry. 


19 


290  Art  Criticism. 


XV. 

ART  CRITICISM. 

A  MONGST  the  various  items  which  go  to  make  up  a 
•^^  newspaper,  we  occasionally  find  a  column  or  two  of 
criticism  on  the  Exhibitions.  These  criticisms  are  not,  in 
general,  very  entertaining  or  attractive  reading,  and  it  may 
be  questioned  whether  anybody  ever  reads  them  fairly 
through.  They  are  looked  over  with  some  anxiety  by  the 
youngest  artists,  skimmed  and  dipped  into  by  visitors  to  the 
Exhibitions,  and  skipped  by  the  rest  of  the  world.  They 
are  probably  inserted  from  the  feeling  that  literary  notice 
of  some  sort  is  due  to  the  acknowledged  importance  of  the 
Fine  Arts.  On  the  whole,  the  periodical  appearance  of 
these  contributions  may  be  accepted  by  painters  as  a  com- 
pliment to  their  profession.  The  present  writer  is  by  no 
means  disposed  to  regret  the  existence,  or  deny  the  possi- 
ble utility,  of  printed  art  criticism.  It  appears  to  him  a 
natural  and  necessary  product,  growing  inevitably  in  every 
country  that  possesses  active  artists  and  an  abundant 
periodical  literature.  The  object  of  this  paper  is  not 
to  weaken  the  influence  of  the  true  critic,  but  rather  to 
strengthen  and  confirm  it  by  attempting  a  definition  of 
his  functions. 

But  it  may  be  doubted  whether  all  who  write  on  art,  or 
even  a  large  proportion  of  them,  are  qualified  by  previous 
study  to  form  opinions  whose  publication  is  desirable.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  have  an  authentic  list  of  anony- 
mous art  critics,  to  know  what  are  their  usual  avocations, 
and  what  proportion  of  their  lives  has  been  devoted  to  the 
study  of  art.  Ferdinand  de  Lasteyrie  tells  us  that  fewer 
qualifications  are  required  from  Parisian  art  critics  than 
from  any  other  writers  for  the  French  press;  that  the 


Art  Criticism.  291 

most  inexperienced  youths  begin  with  the  criticism  of  pic- 
tures, which  is  considered  to  require  so  small  a  stock  of 
information,  and  so  little  judgment,  that  any  raw  boy  may 
undertake  it.  Theatrical  criticism  is,  however,  in  Paris, 
on  quite  a  different  footing,  and  editors  take  great  care  to 
employ  qualified  writers  for  that  department.  The  cause 
of  this  difference  is  obvious.  The  Parisian  public  is  itself 
a  good  judge  of  theatrical  art,  but  no  judge  of  pictorial ; 
it  therefore  at  once  detects  a  pretender  in  theatrical  criti- 
cism, whereas  an  ignorant  critic  of  pictures  may  write  on 
in  perfect  safety.  The  tendency  of  an  advancing  general 
culture  is  therefore  to  elevate  the  tone  of  printed  criticism 
by  excluding  ignorant  writers  from  the  periodicals. 

Many  persons  interested  in  the  Fine  Arts  are  beginning 
to  feel  that  a  great  change  must,  before  long,  come  over 
the  tone  of  current  art  criticism  ;  that  the  duties  of  the 
ordinary  critic  will  be  better  understood  and  more  worthily 
fulfilled,  and  that  the  relation  between  the  critic  and  the 
artist  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  critic  and  the  public  on 
the  other,  will  become  sounder  and  more  serviceable  than 
heretofore.  The  writer  of  these  pages  considers  the  pres- 
ent time  opportune  for  an  attempt  to  indicate  what  seem 
to  be  the  most  important  functions  of  art  criticism.  The 
five  volumes  of  Modern  Painters  have  now  been  for  some 
time  before  the  world.  The  international  picture  exhi- 
bition of  1862  drew  forth  an  immense  mass  of  printed 
comment,  and  the  present  year  has  seen  the  birth  of  a 
Quarterly  Review  exclusively  devoted  to  the  Fine  Arts. 

The  functions  and  duties  of  an  art  critic  would  appear 
to  be  very  much  as  follows  :  — 

1.  To  utter  unpopular  truths.  —  The  reader  may  per- 
haps suspect  me  of  putting  this  so  prominently  out  of  sheer 
perversity.  But  it  is  the  first  and  most  important  of  criti- 
cal functions,  the  chief  use  of  a  critic  being  that  he  should 
announce  truths  which  others  do  not  yet  perceive.  There 
are  but  two  things  that  a  critic  can  state  —  a  truth  and  a 
fallacy.  Each  of  these,  however,  has  two  subdivisions  as 
to  its  popularity ;  a  truth  may  be  popular  or  not,  and  so 
may  a  fallacy.  The  popular  truth,  being  already  sufficiently 


292  Art  Criticism. 

expressed,  has  no  need  of  the  critic's  advocacy ;  fallacy  of 
either  kind  he  had  better  abstain  from  altogether ;  so  there 
is  nothing  left  for  him  but  the  statement  of  unpopular 
truth,  —  rather  an  unpleasant  and  ill-requited  duty,  yet 
the  chief  duty  which  the  art  critic  has  to  fulfil. 

2.  To  instruct  the  public  in  the  theoretical  knowledge  of 
art.  —  The  work  most  needed  is  not  as  yet  pure  criticism, 
but  art-teaching  as  preparatory  to  it.  Art  is  a  subject  so 
deep  and  difficult,  so  infinitely  subtle  and  complex,  that  it 
is  only  after  the  study  of  years  that  men  even  begin  to 
comprehend  it.  But  painting  has  also  another  character- 
istic peculiar  to  itself,  and  which  places  its  teachers  and 
practitioners  in  a  position  of  singular  delicacy.  Other 
profound  studies,  as,  for  instance,  chemistry  or  mathemat- 
ics, are  seen  to  be  difficult  by  every  one,  and  persons  who 
have  not  studied  them  never  labor  under  the  illusion  that 
they  know  all  about  them.  But  painting  seems  so  simple, 
the  object  which  it  proposes  to  itself  is  apparently  so 
obvious,  that  every  one  secretly  believes  himself  competent 
to  judge  of  it.  The  really  informed  teacher  has  therefore 
first  to  persuade  his  less  informed  readers  that  painting  is 
not  a  simple  matter,  but  a  very  deep  and  subtle  compound 
of  several  sciences  with  poetry  ;  next,  that  they  are  them- 
selves as  yet  more  or  less  ignorant  of  painting ;  and  thirdly, 
that  he,  the  critic,  knows  enough  of  the  subject  to  be  a  trust- 
worthy teacher  and  guide.  Now,  even  if  the  critic  can 
persuade  his  audience  that  painting  is  difficult  of  compre- 
hension, he  is  accused  of  contempt  for  the  public  as  soon 
as  he  implies  his  opinion  that  the  public  is  generally  igno- 
rant of  painting.*  This  is  so  far  from  being  a  just 
accusation,  that  some  of  the  men  whose  genius  we  most 
revere,  as  for  instance  Byron,  and  Scott,  and  Wellington, 
knew  nothing  whatever  of  painting.  Grown-up  people, 
however,  seldom  like  to  be  told  that  they  are  ignorant  of 
any  thing,  and  indeed  it  is  superfluous  rudeness  to  tell 
people  of  their  ignorance  when  they  are  already  quite 
aware  of  it. 

*  An  accusation  often  brought  against  Mr.  Ruskin. 


Art  Criticism.  293 

Men  devoted  to  pure  science,  as  for  instance  mathema- 
ticians, are  spared  this  unpleasant  necessity,  because  no 
one  who  has  never  learned  mathematics  ever  dreams  of 
setting  himself  up  as  a  judge  of  merit  in  mathematicians. 
But  when  people  are  ignorant  of  art,  they  are  so  usually 
to  that  degree  that  they  are  not  even  aware  of  their  own 
ignorance.  The  most  politic  critic  is,  therefore,  continually 
driven  into  the  dilemma,  either  to  hold  his  peace  and  so 
let  error  go  uncontradicted,  or  else  convince  his  pupil,  by 
offensive  demonstration,  that  he  does  not  yet  understand 
the  subject.  And  when  we  consider  that  the  writer  on 
art  addresses  himself  neither  to  the  obedience  of  infancy 
nor  the  humility  of  the  poor,  but  to  men  and  women  of 
mature  age,  already  highly  refined,  often  deeply  and 
variously  learned  in  other  matters,  generally  belonging 
to  the  upper  ranks  of  life,  often  very  rich,  and  therefore 
likely  to  be  very  proud,  highly  susceptible,  impatient  of 
instruction,  almost  incapable  of  imagining  that  they  have 
anything  yet  to  learn,  —  the  practical  difficulty  of  such 
teaching  is  clear.  And  even  if,  after  making  hosts  of  ene- 
mies by  his  frankness,  an  art  teacher  should  at  last  succeed 
in  persuading  his  readers  that  they  cannot  know  what  they 
have  never  learned,  the  difficulty  of  proving  his  own  com- 
petence yet  remains.  In  art  criticism  the  most  instructed 
teacher  is  continually  liable  to  err.  Painting  includes 
positive  science,  but  it  also  includes  much  more.  Of  its 
noblest  powers  the  feeling  of  some  finely  organized  human 
being  is  the  only  criterion  ;  of  Turner's  dream-power,  or 
Raphael's  refinement,  the  soul  is  the  only  judge.  And 
here  is  a  question  of  deep  and  inborn  affinity :  we  are  not 
organized  alike,  and  genius  affects  us  variously.  My  im- 
pressions will  seem  wrong  to  you  if  I  state  them  quite 
honestly,  and  so  would  yours  to  me.  A  critic,  therefore, 
who  ever  quits  the  plain  ground  of  easily  ascertainable 
fact  to  attempt  the  higher  criticism  of  feeling,  is  sure  to 
awaken  dissent.  Rude  and  simple  persons  express  this 
dissent  with  vehemence,  and  become  personally  hostile ; 
intellectual  men  mark  with  curious  interest  the  point  of 
divergence,  and  calmly  try  to  account  for  it.  But  both 


294  Art  Criticism. 

henceforth  regard  the  critic  as  a  fallible  person,  whose 
teaching  is  to  be  either  rejected  altogether  or  received 
with  thoughtful  caution. 

It  may  be  asked  when  this  educating  function  of  the  art 
critic  is  to  cease.  It  is  like  asking  when  schoolmasters  are 
to  cease.  Every  day  thousands  of  new  human  beings 
come  into  the  world  whose  future  social  position  will 
require  them  to  pretend  to  appreciate  pictures.  Is  this 
pretension  to  be  a  hollow  make-belief,  degrading  to  manli- 
ness, destructive  to  honesty,  and  thus  vitally  injurious  to 
character  ?  or  is  it  to  be  the  simple  assertion  of  a  well- 
founded  right  to  a  real  opinion  ?  If  the  latter,  the  thec*- 
retical  art  teacher  —  the  "  critic,"  as  he  is  yet  called  —  has 
endless  work  before  him.  By  means  of  books  and  articles 
in  the  reviews  and  newspapers,  and,  I  think,  still  more  by 
direct  personal  communication  in  the  form  of  lectures,  he 
will  have  to  train  the  public  in  those  eternal  truths  which 
are  the  beginning  of  criticism.  He  and  his  successors  will 
have  to  repeat  them  over  and  over  again  so  long  as  civil- 
ization shall  endure. 

3.  To  defend  true  living  artists  against  the  malice  of 
the  ignorant.  —  Every  original  painter,  especially  in  land- 
scape, has  to  pass  through  a  period  of  contempt  which  it  is 
in  the  power  of  any  intelligent  critic  to  shorten  by  demon- 
strating his  fidelity  to  nature.  This  ought  not  to  be  an 
exceptional  act  of  kindness  on  the  critic's  part ;  it  is  a 
simple  duty  which  he  is  bound  to  perform  whenever  he 
sees  the  need  of  it.  The  most  acute  sufferings  of  men  of 
genius  are  inflicted  by  the  instinctive  tendency  of  mankind 
to  consider  all  originality  a  fair  butt  for  ridicule.  But  lit- 
tle men  are  weak  against  a  strong  will,  and  one  resolute 
voice  will  silence  the  silly  laughter  of  whole  multitudes. 

A  peculiar  form  of  this  duty  is  the  defence  of  young 
artists  whose  powers  are  as  yet  imperfectly  developed.  It 
is  certain  that  a  young  painter  who  sees  and  feels  very 
intensely  will  try  for  too  much,  and  spoil  his  pictures. 
The  sort  of  injury  to  young  men's  work  which  comes  of 
their  good  qualities  ought,  therefore,  to  be  spoken  of  with 
the  utmost  indulgence,  and  even  defended  by  the  art  critic. 


Art  Criticism.  295 

Of  course  he  must  state  the  defects  frankly,  but  at  the 
same  time  he  is  bound  to  enforce  the  truth,  too  often  for- 
gotten, that  certain  rare  and  noble  qualities,  like  swans,  are 
repulsive  at  first,  and  only  become  beautiful  as  they  approach 
maturity. 

4.  To  prevent  false   living   artists  from   acquiring  an 
influence  injurious  to  the  general  interests  of  art.  —  Some 
good-natured  people  think  it  very  wrong  and  unkind  in  a 
critic  to  point  out  the  defects  of  living  men,  and  so  reduce 
their  incomes  ;  but  as  soon  as  a  painter  acquires  any  influ- 
ence, his  short-comings  ought  to  be  clearly,  though  not 
discourteously,  stated.     For   example,  a   certain   famous 
painter,  whose   services  as  an   illustrator  of    interesting 
buildings  were,  before  the  invention  of  photographic  print- 
ing, of  quite  inestimable  value,  has  for  some  years  exhib- 
ited a  peculiar  kind  of  cleverly  tinted  drawings  in  oil,  of 
which  he  is  the  inventor.     But  a  critic  who  should  fail  to 
point  out  the  difference  between  these  and  real  pictures 
would  not  be  doing  his  duty.     There  is  no  necessity,  either 
in  this  or  any  other  such  case,  to  speak  of  the  artist  with 
unkindness,  or  to  vex  and  irritate  him  by  sarcasm.     It  is 
merely  necessary  to  demonstrate  that  his  works,  though 
exhibited  as  pictures,  and  therefore  supposed  to  be  works 
in  color,  are  only  tinted  drawings  executed  in  oil,  with  no 
attempt  to  render  the  variety  of  natural  hues.     After  read- 
ing such  a  criticism,  the  spectator  might  still  sufficiently 
admire  these  works  on  their  own  grounds,  but  he  would 
be  protected  from  an  influence  which  might  else  have  viti- 
ated his  sense  of  color,  and  so  incapacitated  him  for  the 
enjoyment  of  color  in  nature,  and  prevented  him  from  ren- 
dering the  honor  which  is  due  to  genuine  painters  who 
really  do  work  in  color. 

5.  To  exalt  the  farqe  of  dead  artists  whose  example  may 
be  beneficial.  —  It  may  frequently  happen  that  some  dead 
artist,  whose  name  is  not  on  everybody's  lips,  has  never- 
theless done  certain  things  in  such  a  supremely  excellent 
way  that  attention  ought  from  time  to  time  to  be  directed 
to  his  works  with  reference  to  their  especial  quality.     It 
requires  some  effort  to  remember  very  many  names,  and 


296 


Art  Criticism. 


so,  out  of  pure  indolence,  the  human  race  prefers  to  repeat 
incessantly  half  a  dozen  of  the  most  famous,  and  ignore 
the  rest  absolutely.  This  is  very  convenient,  for  it  enables 
us  to  gain  credit  for  a  knowledge  of  art  without  heavily 
burdening  our  memories,  but  it  is  neither  instructive  to 
the  living  nor  just  to  the  dead.  There  is  no  habit  more 
degrading  to  the  human  intelligence  than  that  of  narrow- 
ing our  powers  of  admiration  to  three  or  four  sets  of 
objects.  We  ought  to  admire  all  that  is  good,  whoever  did 
it,  be  he  living  or  dead.  True  artists,  thank  God !  have 
been  and  still  are  numerous,  and  from  every  true  artist 
there  is  always  something  to  be  learned  that  no  other  can 
teach  us  so  well. 

6.  To  weaken  the  fame  of  dead  artists  whose  names 
have  an  injurious  degree  of  authority.  —  One  of  the  most 
melancholy  things  in  the  world  is  the  enormous  power  for 
evil  of  the  dead  over  the  living.  There  are  dead  foreign- 
ers who  govern  England  in  many  ways  with  a  tyranny 
that  we  should  endure  from  no  living  one.  Great  artists, 
who,  when  alive,  were  probably  far  too  liberal  and  large- 
minded  to  conceive  it  desirable  that  anybody  should  slav- 
ishly imitate  them,  are  erected,  when  dead,  into  colossal 
obstacles  in  the  road  to  original  achievement.  There  is 
scarcely  a  single  famous  painter  whose  name  has  not  been 
misused  as  a  means  for  the  repression  of  genius.  The 
way  in  which  great  m.en  are  admired  by  little  ones  is  so 
utterly  childish  and  irrational  that  they  pervert  even  origi- 
nality itself  into  an  argument  against  originality.  Instead 
of  saying,  "  Raphael  was  original,  and  you  ought  to  be  so 
too,"  they  say,  "  Raphael  was  original,  therefore  you  are 
to  mimic  him."  They  can  conceive  of  no  other  sort  of 
respect  for  genius  than  that  which  monkeys  have  for 
humanity. 

There  is,  unfortunately,  only  one  way  of  meeting  this 
fallacy.  It  is  useless  to  argue  that  when  Raphael  worked 
he  had  no  idea  of  binding  down  all  future  painters  to  his 
particular  manner.  It  is  in  vain  to  suggest  that  it  would 
probably  be  rather  unpleasant  than  not  to  a  man  of  origi- 
nal genius  to  be  copied  for  ever  and  ever  by  endless  gener- 


Art  Criticism.  297 

ations  of  mere  imitators.  It  is  idle  to  hope  that  persons 
devoid  of  originality  can  ever  be  brought  so  far  to  compre- 
hend its  nature  as  to  perceive  that  the  object  of  its  intensest 
scorn  is  not  another  originality,  which  it  always  heartily 
respects,  but  precisely  that  slavish  imitation  by  which 
people  imagine  that  they  are  paying  it  an  appropriate 
homage.  So  the  only  course  left  is  to  point  out  the  fail- 
ings of  great  men,  and  as  every  great  man  has  plenty  of 
them,  there  is  much  to  be  said  in  that  way. 

There  is  a  vast  critical  movement  in  our  age,  the  general 
object  of  which  may  be  defined  as  the  emancipation  of  the 
living  intellect  from  the  tyranny  of  the  dead.  Nothing 
whatever  is  safe  from  this  movement.  No  sanctity  of  tra- 
dition will  preserve  the  most  revered  writings  from  the 
severe  scrutiny  of  this  universal  criticism.  No  dead  his- 
torian will  escape  questioning  as  to  the  evidence  for  his 
events  ;  no  dead  natural  philosopher  will  pass  conjecture  for. 
experiment,  for  the  human  race  is  advancing  to  ripe  years, 
and  no  longer  accepts  as  infallible  the  authorities  that  gov- 
erned its  infancy.  Nor  can  famous  artists,  any  more  than 
famous  writers  and  men  of  science,  be  henceforth  the  fault- 
less gods  they  were.  All  their  claims  are  to  be  sifted  in  a 
new  and  strange  way,  not  by  passionate  partisans,  but  by 
calm  clear  heads  that  care  for  no  man's  name.  Out  of  this 
ordeal  many  a  white  fame  will  come  shrivelled,  and  frail, 
and  black,  like  paper  out  of  fire ;  but  others  will  only  be 
brightened  by  it  afresh.  And  the  benefit  to  the  people 
will  be,  that  they  will  no  longer  worship  blindly,  like  sav- 
ages, but  admire  intelligently  like  thinking  men. 

7.  To  speak  always  with  absolute  sincerity.  —  There  is 
a  certain  kind  of  criticism,  very  knowing  in  tone,  and  light 
and  jaunty  in  expression,  which  scarcely  even  pretends  to 
a  conviction  of  any  kind  whatever.  Such  criticism  is 
almost  invariably  insincere.  When  men  are  quite  in  ear- 
nest they  are  never  frivolous  or  flippant.  Perhaps  an  insin- 
cere writer  on  art  may  often  be  rather  shallow  and  careless 
than  dishonest,  and  utter  idle  fallacies  merely  because  noth- 
ing concerning  art  has  acquired  in  his  own  mind  the  solidity 
and  consistence  of  a  truth.  His  main  object  is  to  produce 


298  Art  Criticism. 

* 

telling  remarks  about  pictures,  and  say  as  many  smart 
things  as  he  can  find  a  pretext  for.  The  criticisms  in  some 
of  the  French  newspapers  are  perfect  masterpieces  of  this 
kind  of  writing.  They  have  nothing  to  do  with  art  teach- 
ing, for  you  may  read  them  from  year  to  year  without 
learning  any  thing.  They  appear  to  be  quite  purposeless, 
and  only  leave  a  general  impression  on  the  reader's  mind 
that  the  writer  must  be  rather  a  sharp  fellow.  If  these 
men  were  to  say  to  themselves  before  writing,  "  I  will  say 
nothing  but  what  I  think,  I  will  set  down  only  my  real 
opinions,"  they  would  be  much  embarrassed,  because  they 
don't  think,  and  have  no  opinions. 

Happily,  men  have  an  instinct  which  protects  them,  from 
the  influence  of  the  insincere.  One  writer  with  a  set  of 
real  convictions,  be  they  truths  or  mistakes,  has  more 
power  in  the  world  than  a  hundred  without  an  opinion. 
.The  influence  of  insincere  art  critics  can  therefore  only  be 
considerable  in  regions  where  no  earnest  one  is  active. 
They  feel  this  so  instinctively  that  when  a  true  man 
appears,  they  always  immediately  combine  against  him, 
being  afraid  of  him,  as  well  they  may.  Any  particularly 
sincere  and  earnest  painter  is  also  sure  to  be  the  object  of 
their  untiring  animosity ;  but  they  laud  false  artists  with  a 
brotherly  good-will. 

8.  To  give  open  expression  to  vicissitudes  of  opinion, 
not  fearing  the  imputation  of  inconsistency.  —  This,  though 
put  separately  on  account  of  its  importance,  is  of  course 
comprised  in  the  simple  duty  of  sincerity.  A  man  who 
always  says  what  he  thinks,  and  whose  opinions  modify  them- 
selves continually,  cannot  always  say  the  same  thing.  The 
opinions  of  men  who  think  are  always  growing  and  chang- 
ing, like  living  children.  All  honest  and  thoughtful  men 
know  this,  and  the  sort  of  consistency  which  is  merely  the 
repetition  of  a  formula  is  not,  in  their  view,  a  thing  to  be 
respected.  Such  consistency  is  often  to  be  attributed  to 
simple  stolidity,  and  still  oftener  perhaps  to  a  very  cunning 
sort  of  dishonesty.  A  dishonest  writer  thinks,  before  he 
commits  any  thing  to  print,  "  I  must  mind  what  I  am 
about,  and  not  say  any  thing  contrary  to  what  I  have  said 


Art  Criticism.  299 

somewhere  else ; "  so  instead  of  publishing,  his  opinions  of 
to-day,  in  other  words,  his  only  sincere  opinions,  he  dis- 
honestly twists  them  to  make  them  fit  in  with  opinions 
expressed  perhaps  years  ago,  and  thereby  gets  respected 
for  his  precious  consistency.  A  stupid  man,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  consistent  from  sheer  inertness.  He  arrived  at  a 
conclusion  some  time  ago,  and  finds  it  too  disturbing  and 
troublesome  to  look  into  the  grounds  of  it  now,  wherefore 
he  also  is  held  to  be  wise.  But  a  writer  who  is  both  hon- 
est and  intelligent  is  perpetually  reviewing  his  own  conclu- 
sions, and  asking  himself  candidly  where  he  may  have 
been  mistaken ;  and  every  time  he  feels  convinced  that  he 
has  been  leading  people  wrong,  he  is  simple  enough  to  be 
in  a  hurry  to  tell  them  so ;  on  which  the  people,  who  have 
a  violent  admiration  for  consistency,  and  a  proportionate 
contempt  for  the  want  of  it,  utterly  scorn  and  despise  him 
as  an  unsafe  and  uncertain  guide  that  doesn't  know  his  own 
mind,  and  cannot  tell  whither  he  is  going.  And  indeed  in 
this  last  particular  they  are  very  right;  for  whosoever 
accepts  Truth  for  his  leader,  and  follows  her  faithfully, 
scarcely  can  tell  whither  she  may  lead  him. 

9.  To  make  himself  as  thoroughly  informed  as  his  time 
and  opportunities  will  allow  about  every  thing  concerning 
the  Fine  Arts,  whether  directly  or  indirectly.  —  Art  is  so 
vast  that  it  is  scarcely  conceivable  how  any  man  can 
become  a  very  profound  judge  -of  it,  without  devoting  his 
whole  time  to  it.  But  I  have  inserted  the  phrase,  "  as  his 
time  and  opportunities  will  allow,"  under  the  supposition 
that  it  might  perhaps  be  possible  for  some  writer  of  very 
extraordinary  genius  to  acquire  an  extensive  knowledge 
of  art  in  the  intervals  of  other  and,  to  him,  more  important 
avocations.  The  only  way  to  learn  the  rudiments  of  art 
criticism  is  to  draw  and  paint  the  facts  of  nature,  that  is, 
to  produce  careful  studies  from  nature,  each  with  the 
especial  object  of  recording  faithfully  some  particular  natu- 
ral fact.  Perhaps  a  thousand  such  studies  might  suffice 
for  the  acquisition  of  the  elements  of  natural  law.  They 
ought  to  be  executed  in  different  materials,  according  |  to 
their  especial  purpose.  But  to  become  an  accomplished 


300  Art  Criticism. 

art  critic  it  is  also  essential  to  make  studies  of  pictures  and 
drawings  by  different  masters,  not  in  the  way  of  copying 
complete  works,  but  rather  studying  parts  of  them,  always 
with  a  definite  object.  It  is  unnecessary  to  indicate  the 
immense  range  of  literary  culture  essential  to  the  art  critic. 
The  success  of  historical  painting  is  not  to  be  estimated  by 
persons  ignorant  of  history,  nor  can  illustrations  of  poets 
be  intelligible  to  spectators  who  never  read  verse.  And 
there  is  this  peculiarity  about  the  position  of  every  art 
critic,  that  his  knowledge  must  embrace  the  knowledge,  not 
of  one  artist  only,  but  of  thousands. 

Nor  can  people  who  stay  at  home  become  art  critics. 
No  one  can  judge  authoritatively  of  the  representation  of 
a  class  of  scenery  with  which  he  is  not  familiar.  The 
range  of  our  landscape  painters  is  extensive.  They  illus- 
trate every  kind  of  scenery  in  Europe,  and  of  late  years 
they  penetrate  into  Egypt  and  Asia.  The  critic  must  fol- 
low them  everywhere,  taking  memoranda  of  natural  facts. 
He  must  also  travel  to  see  pictures.  The  critic  of  litera- 
ture may  find  in  London  all  the  books  he  needs ;  but  the 
productions  of  painters  are  not  so  easily  accessible.  The 
color  of  a  picture  cannot  be  reproduced.  Hence  nothing 
but  the  original  handiwork  of  the  painter  himself  is  of  the 
least  use  for  reference.  And  to  grasp  the  whole  mind  of  a 
great  artist  we  must  see  all  his  works,  for  every  great 
artistic  nature  is  so  large  that  each  picture  is  a  new  reve- 
lation of  ranges  of  power  before  unknown  to  us. 

10.  To  enlarge  his  own  powers  of  sympathy.  —  How  far 
this  may  be  done  by  an  effort  of  the  will  must  depend  on 
the  nature  of  the  man.  But  the  elasticity  and  universality 
of  his  sympathy  are  amongst  the  noblest  and  .rarest  distinc- 
tions of  the  genuine  critic.  Painting  is  an  expression  of 
human  feeling.  Cold  and  unsympathetic  temperaments, 
which  are  so  often  tempted  to  write  criticism  by  the  love 
of  power,  are  therefore  disqualified  for  it  by  their  own 
constitution.  A  true  critic  feels  with  the  artist,  and  is 
therefore  strangely  tolerant  of  the  most  opposite  kinds 
of  artistic  expression ;  an  unfeeling  nature  prides  itself  on 
remaining  unmoved,  and  actually  esteems  its  own  callous- 


Art  Criticism.  301 

ness  a  sort  of  superiority.  An  artist  may  be  all  the  better 
for  not  being  self-conscious,  but  a  critic  needs  a  highly 
sensitive  self-consciousness  to  deliver  him  from  that  slavery 
to  its  own  narrow  personality  which  enthralls  every  simple 
mind. 

11.  To  resist  the  formation  of  prejudices.  —  The  Fine 
Arts  naturally  breed  prejudice.  Almost  every  painter  is 
perfectly  convinced  that  some  process  or  color  is  abomi- 
nable, merely  because  he  is  not  master  of  it,  or  that  some 
natural  object  or  effect  is  unsuitable  for  artistic  purposes, 
because  he  himself  has  no  feeling  for  it.  One  painter 
tried  to  persuade  me  that  cobalt  is  incompatible  with  har- 
mony, and  that  it  ought  to  be  rejected  from  the  color-box ; 
and  every  color  has  some  bitter  and  inveterate  enemy 
amongst  artists.  There  is  hardly  a  painter  who  has  not 
some  crotchet  which  the  experience  of  many  others  proves 
to  be  quite  groundless,  and  the  more  we  know  of  Art  the 
less  we  feel  disposed  to  pin  our  faith  to  the  dicta  of  any 
single  theorist  or  practitioner. 

The  explanation  of  this  with  regard  to  painters  is  that 
their  personal  experience,  being  intensely  narrow  and 
practical,  naturally  gives  rise  to  strong  convictions,  which 
they  have  seldom  enough  of  self-consciousness  to  attribute 
to  their  simple  personal  cause,  and  which  they  therefore 
express  as  if  they  were  absolute,  and  not  merely  relative 
truths.  Instead  of  saying,  for  instance,  "I  don't  enjoy 
green,"  a  painter  will  very  likely  tell  you  that  "  green  is 
incompatible  with  fine  color."  Sometimes  this  takes  the 
form  of  a  violent  animosity  against  some  unoffending  tree 
or  plant.  Englishmen  often  have  a  prejudice  against  pop- 
lars, and  I  met  a  Frenchman  once  who  railed  at  chestnut- 
trees  with  an  incredible  acerbity. 

Prejudices  of  this  kind,  however  foolish  and  unfounded, 
are  not  of  much  consequence  in  painters,  because  if  they 
have  an  antipathy  to  a  certain  color  or  tree,  they  only 
avoid  it.  But  one  or  two  such  prejudices  might  vitiate 
the  judgment  of  a  critic,  so  as  to  make  him  unjus,t  to  whole 
classes  of  artists. 

The  artifices  of  pseudo  art  criticism  are  so  transparent 


302  Art  Criticism.    . 

that  it  seems  hardly  worth  while  to  indicate  them ;  still, 
as  they  appear  to  impose  upon  some  people  even  yet,  they 
have  a  claim  upon  our  attention. 

To  be  a  true  art  critic  it  is  necessary,  first,  to  be  in 
possession  of  an  enormous  amount  of  information  about 
Art  and  Nature  such  as  very  few  persons  have  either  time 
or  industry  to  acquire.  Of  course  we  pre-suppose  a  natu- 
ral talent  or  disposition  for  criticism,  but  that,  without  the 
information,  only  makes  people  talk;  and  when  people 
talk  about  matters  which  they  do  not  understand,  they 
generally  talk  nonsense. 

The  pseudo  art  critic  is  a  person  who  writes  what  is 
called  criticism  without  being  in  possession  of  the  prelimi- 
nary information  which  is  indispensable  to  the  production 
of  true  criticism.  His  chief  anxiety  is  to  hide  this  defi- 
ciency from  his  readers,  and  to  leave  the  impression  on 
their  minds  that  he  knows  all  about  the  Fine  Arts.  This 
is  easy  or  difficult  in  exact  proportion  to  the  cultivation 
of  his  audience. 

A  genuine  art  critic  often  confesses  ignorance  of  par- 
ticular truths ;  as,  for  instance,  in  criticizing  a  naked  figure, 
if  he  does  not  understand  anatomy  he  will  probably  tell 
you  so  with  perfect  frankness  ;  or  if  he  has  not  witnessed 
a  storm  at  sea,  yet  has  to  criticise  a  shipwreck,  he  will 
begin  by  telling  you  that  his  opinion  on  the  subject  is  not 
of  much  value,  but  that  the  remarks  he  ventures  to  offer 
may  be  taken  for  what  they  are  worth.  A  pseudo  critic 
never  does  this,*  and  whenever  a  critic  pretends  to  know 
every  thing,  it  is  the  surest  sign  that  he  knows  nothing, 
that  he  has  not  even  an  idea  of  what  it  is  to  know  any 
thing  thoroughly.  The  pretence  to  universality  in  art 
criticism  is  sure  to  be  hollow,  because  human  life  is  not 
long  enough  for  a  man  to  become  a  universal  art  critic,  if 
he  studied  for  it  ten  hours  a  day,  and  never  did  any  thing 
else. 

The  immediate  object  of  a  pseudo  critic  is  to  discover 

*  That  is,  up  to  the  date  of  the  present  publication.  When  they  have 
read  this  paper  they  will  invent  a  new  set  of  dodges,  amongst  which  — 
who  knows  ?  —  even  modesty  may  find  a  place. 


Art  Criticism.  303 

defects ;  that  of  a  true  one,  to  arrive  at  opinions.  The 
false  critic  cannot,  however,  afford  to  point  out  the  defects 
of  painters  already  canonized,  because,  by  so  doing,  he 
would  oppose  the^popular  opinion,  which  he  always  takes 
care  to  conciliate.  There  is  this  peculiarity  about  painting, 
that  it  is  impossible  to  produce  an  absolutely  true  picture, 
because  some  truths  must  always  be  sacrificed  to  others. 
If,  in  a  landscape,  the  relation  of  one  shadow  to  its  light 
is  truly  given,  the  rest  of  the  picture  must  be  either  false 
or  out  of  harmony  with  that  shadow.  Again,  color  has 
to  be  sacrificed  to  light,  and  form  to  color.  A  painter  has 
always  to  purchase  truths  with  falsities,  as  men  buy  bread 
with  money;  and  this  necessity  being  not  in  the  least 
understood  by  the  public  generally,  offers  to  the  pseudo 
critic  infinite  opportunities  for  the  exercise  of  his  little  art 
or  trick  of  petty  fault-finding.  And  not  only  that,  but  the 
extreme  difficulty  of  painting  exposes  all  painters,  even 
the  greatest,  to  genuine  errors,  which  a  noble  critic  notices 
only  when  absolutely  necessary,  but  which  the  base  one 
fastens  upon  instinctively,  whenever  he  dare,  to  the  neglect 
of  every  thing  else ;  so  that  the  whole  tissue  of  his  criti- 
cism like  the  talk  of  an  ill-tempered  woman,  is  tiresome  and 
interminable  fault-finding. 

Then  there  is  the  safe  old  well-known  critical  trick  of 
blaming  a  thing  for  not  being  something  else.  The  aims 
of  our  English  painters  are,  to  their  honor,  so  large  and 
various  that  endless  opportunities  occur  for  the  exercise 
of  this  ancient  artifice.  The  wonder  is,  that  there  should 
exist  people  so  simple  as  to  be  imposed  upon  by  it ;  yet  it 
still  apparently  answers,  like  many  other  cunning  contri- 
vances of  our  ancestors,  which  modern  ingenuity  strives 
vainly  to  supercede.  Thus  if  I  want  to  leave  an  impres- 
sion that  John  Lewis  and  John  Brett  are  not  what  they 
should  be,  I  have  only  to  suggest  that  Reynolds  and 
Gainsborough  did  not  paint  in  that  manner,  which  of 
course  is  undeniable. 

But  an  invention  which  modern  times  may  fairly  claim 
is  the  art  of  hinting  that  you  could  say  a  good  deal  against 
a  picture  if  you  felt  inclined,  but  that  the  faults  you  vaguely 


304  Art  Criticism. 

allude  to  are  too  obvious  to  require  specification.  This  has 
great  effect  on  people  not  very  conyersant  with  Art.  An- 
other form  of  it  is  to  allude  to  classes  of  Art,  whose  merit 
and  value  you  cannot  quite  safely  deny,  as  if  they  were  so 
very  familiar  as  to  have  become  stale  and  tiresome.  There 
exists  amongst  artists  a  complete  vocabulary  of  slang,  the 
great  convenience  of  which  is  that  it  enables  you  to  talk 
knowingly  about  your  superiors,  and,  without  committing 
yourself  to  the  expression  of  a  single  real  opinion,  affect  to 
estimate  lightly  all  that  they  have  accomplished. 

The  one  distinguishing  quality  of  all  valuable  art  criti- 
cism is  largeness,  —  largeness  of  acquired  information,  to 
grasp  the  knowledge  of  so  many  thousands  of  artists,  and 
largeness  of  natural  sympathy,  to  enter  into  the  individual 
feelings  and  affections  of  so  great  a  multitude  of  minds. 
For  to  criticise  adequately  any  artist's  work,  mere  talent 
and  honesty,  though  needful,  are  not  enough.  It  is  neces- 
sary to  have  learned  what  he  has  learned,  and  felt  what 
he  has  felt. 


Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art.  305 

XVI. 

PROUDHON  AS  A  WRITER  ON  ART.* 

A  MONGST  all  the  discouraging  facts  about  the  public 
•£*•  reception  of  the  fine  arts,  there  is  not  one  so  discour- 
aging as  the.  difficulty  of  finding  out  what  people  really 
think.  The  sameness  of  shallow  profession  that  murmurs 
in  our  ears  is  a  weariness  to  the  soul.  The  orthodox  in  art, 
like  the  orthodox  in  some  other  matters,  seem  to  find 
satisfaction  jn  all  acquiescence  or  verbal  submission  to 
their  authority;  they  are  pleased  and  contented  when 
ignorance  repeats,  without  either  feeling  or  understanding, 
the  consecrated  formulae ;  they  are  happy  when  any  one 
says  what  they  think,  and  irritated  if  he  says  what  he 
thinks  himself.  It  appears  that  many  minds  like  echoes 
better  than  all  the  other  sounds  on  earth,  and  willingly 
pass  their  lives  in  listening  to  nothing  else.  Nay,  so 
wedded  are  they  to  this  strange  taste  of  theirs,  that  they 
will  listen  to  nothing  else. 

To  all  such  —  and  alas !  they  are  many  —  this  book  of 
Proudhon's  is  not  to  be  recommended.  The  sounds  that 
come  out  of  it  are  not  repetitions  but  new  voices,  often 
flatly  contradictory  of  our  own,  and  of  all  others  hitherto 
familiar  in  our  ears.  Proudhon  was  a  very  hard-headed, 
merciless  disputant,  far  too  sincere  to  be  always  pleasant, 
saying  what  he  thought  "in  words  like  cannon-balls." 
One  of  his  phrases,  "  La  propriete  c'est  le  vol"  was  more 
than  a  cannon-ball,  it  was  a  bomb-shell.  It  was  not 
exactly  true,  but  there  was  just  enough  truth  in  it  to 
make  it  very  terrible.  The  pages  of  his  book  on  art  are 
charged  with  smaller  bombs  that  explode  in  our  faces  as 
we  turn  the  leaves. 

*  "Du  Principe  de  1'Art  et  de  sa  Destination  Sociale,"  par  P.  J. 
Proudhon.  Paris. 

20 


306  Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art. 

Proudhon  was  "let  loose  on  this  planet"  for  the  purpose 
of  awakening  discussion  on  those  fundamental  postulates 
which  society  likes  to  take  for  granted.  Nobody  would 
ever  discuss  these,  if  some  bold  thinker  did  not  from  time 
to  time  attack  them.  In  the  realms  of  social  philosophy, 
and  we  may  now  add  of  art  also,  Proudhon  served  the 
purpose  of  "  Her  Majesty's  Opposition ; "  he  was  useful  as 
resistance  is  to  force.  No  force  can  be  exercised  without 
resistance,  and,  in  intellectual  matters,  real  resistance,  such 
as  Proudhon's,  is  very  difficult  to  get.  Ships  that  sail  on 
water  can  go  against  the  wind,  because  they  have  hold 
with  their  keels  upon  a  resisting  medium ;  but  balloons, 
those  ships  of  the  upper  air,  are  driven  helplessly  to  lee- 
ward because  no  strong  element  withstands  their  flying 
cars.  In  common  practical  matters  the  resistance  is  sup- 
plied by  material  difficulties,  and  men  may  sail ;  in  the 
intellectual  region  there  is  too  often  no  such  resistance, 
and  they  drift. 

Before  criticising  these  posthumous  notes  on  art  which 
Proudhon  has  left  us,  it  is  quite  necessary,  in  order  that 
we  may  understand  them  rightly,  to  comprehend  the 
strange  nature  of  the  man. 

If  a  great  power  evidently  exists  upon  the  earth, 
appearing  in  times  and  places  far  apart,  and  asserting 
itself  victoriously  as  an  influence  strong  enough  to  modify 
the  existence  of  humanity,  certain  thinkers  are  satisfied 
that  by  the  very  fact  of  its  wide  and  forcible  action  on 
mankind  the  power  has  a  Divine  authority,  or  is  at  least 
a  natural  product,  and  therefore  to  be  examined  respect- 
fully. I  am  of  this  way  of  thinking,  but  Proudhon  was 
not.  Take,  for  example,  the  power  of  capital,  and  its 
exaction  of  tribute  in  the  shape  of  interest.  This  power 
has  not  been  created  by  the  will  of  individuals,  or  the 
decision  of  governments ;  it  grows  everywhere  naturally. 
Its  strength  may  seem  to  us  occasionally  a  temptation  to 
certain  forms  of  tyranny,  which  legislation  has  a  right  to 
guard  us  against,  but  we  humbly  recognize  the  power 
of  capital  as  an  institution  of  the  Supreme  wisdom,  and 
therefore  cannot  disapprove  of  it  any  more  than  we  can 


Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art.  307 

disapprove  of  the  natural  collecting  of  water  in  lakes  and 
seas.  But  Proudhon's  mind  was  so  constituted  that  he 
was  capable  of  feeling  the  strongest  moral  disapproval 
concerning  the  central  institutions  of  Nature.  To  hoard 
capital,  in  his  view,  was  really  a  crime ;  and  the  exaction 
of  interest,  robbery.  Nor  did  he  maintain  these  views 
because  he  was  poor,  and  envied  the  rich.  He  had  oppor- 
tunities of  becoming  richer,  and  refused  to  profit  by  them, 
from  motives  of  conscience.  Indeed,  those  English  writers 
must  have  a  very  slight  acquaintance  with  the  private 
history  of  French  republicans  who  believe  them  to  have 
been  actuated  by  a  motive  so  easily  explained  as  mere 
envy.  They  were  enthusiasts  who  had  a  faith,  and  for 
that  faith  they  gladly  suffered  poverty,  exile,  and  imprison- 
ment, when  the  abandonment  of  it  would  have  given  them 
ease,  and  often  led  them  to  much  worldly  prosperity. 

This  peculiarity  of  Proudhon's  mind  must  be  remem- 
bered when  we  read  his  criticism  of  art.  Whatever  offends 
his  moral  sense  he  vehemently  opposes.  Nothing  is  sacred 
for  him  but  his  own  sense  of  what  is  right.  There  is  a 
violence,  a  virulence,  in  his  onslaughts  which  becomes 
most  offensive  if  we  lose  sight  for  a  moment  of  his  peculiar 
point  of  view.  But  if  we  are  irritated  against  him,  it  is 
evidence  of  a  want  of  philosophy  in  ourselves.  Proudhon 
wrote  unreservedly  what  he  thought;  he  might  have 
abstained  from  writing,  or  he  might  have  written  what 
other  people  thought.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  he 
acted  wisely  in  leaving  for  publication  his  ideas  on  art,  a 
subject  of  which  he  had  no  special  knowledge ;  but  there 
cannot  be  a  doubt  that  if  we  concede  this,  and  leave  him 
the  choice  between  expressing  his  own  opinions  or  other 
people's,  it  was  his  duty  to  us,  his  readers,  to  express 
his  own. 

He  had  no  diffidence,  nor  deference.  But  these  are 
feelings  rather  useful  to  warn  us  off  literary  ground  than 
to  guide  us  when  we  are  on  it,  pen  in  hand.  Men  of 
strong  convictions  are  always  liable  to  the  accusation 
of  want  of  modesty.  They  say  what  they  believe,  as  if 
they  not  only  believed  but  knew  it.  Thorough  belief  has 


308  Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art. 

within  itself  an  assurance  equivalent  to  that  of  perfect 
knowledge.  If  a  man  has  this,  his  writings  will  convey 
the  impression  that  he  is  conceited  when  he  is  only  con- 
vinced. There  is  immense  assurance  in  Proudhon's  man- 
ner, but  it  is  only  the  language  of  genuine  earnestness. 
Writers  who  are  never  in  earnest  about  any  thing,  have  a 
great  advantage  over  him  in  this  respect ;  they  can  culti- 
vate at  leisure  the  amiable  art  of  modesty. 

The  first  proposition  of  Proudhon,  which  I  should  feel 
inclined  to  dispute,  is  the  one  on  which  he  founds  his 
position  as  an  art  critic,  namely,  the  judicial  competence 
of  the  uninformed  spectator.  The  following  paragraphs, 
translated  and  much  condensed,  contain  the  essentials  of 
his  argument  * :  — 

"  I  know  nothing  by  study  or  apprenticeship  about  painting,  or 
sculpture,  or  music.  I  have  always  liked  their  productions  as 
children  like  engravings.  I  am  of  that  innumerable  multitude 
which  knows  nothing  of  art,  as  to  its  execution,  or  of  its  secrets, 
which,  far  from  swearing  by  a  school,  is  incapable  of  appreciating 
manual  skill,  the  difficulties  overcome,  the  science  of  means  and 
processes,  but  whose  suffrage  is  the  only  one  that  artists  aspire  to, 
and  for  whom  art  creates.  This  multitude  has  the  right  to  declare 
what  it  rejects  or  prefers,  to  signify  its  tastes,  to  impose  its  will 
upon  artists.  It  may  make  mistakes,  its  tastes  require  to  be  awak- 
ened and  exercised;  but  it  is  the  supreme  judge.  It  can  say  — 
and  none  may  reply  —  '  I  command ;  it  is  your  business,  artists,  to 
obey.  For  if  your  art  repels  my  inspiration  ;  if  it  has  the  preten- 
sion to  impose  itself  on  my  fancy  instead  of  following  it;  if  it  dares 
to  refuse  my  decisions  ;  if,  in  a  word,  it  is  not  made  for  me  I  despise 
it ;  with  all  its  marvels  I  repudiate  it.' 

"  Nature  has  made  us,  as  to  ideas  and  sentiments,  about  equally 
artists.  As  the  progress  of  knowledge  is  slow,  and  requires  studies 
and  efforts,  so  aesthetic  education  is  rapid.  Authority  in  art  is  inad- 
missible. It  is  enough  for  any  man  to  consult  himself  to  be  in  a 
position  to  put  forth  a  judgment  on  no  matter  what  work  of  art. 
This  is  how  I  have  constituted  myself  an  art  critic,  and  I  recom- 
mend all  my  readers  to  do  the  same. 

"I  judge  works  of  art  by  theJaste  for  beautiful  things  which  is 
natural  to  us,  and  especially  by  what  I  have  learned  in  literature.  I 
have  no  aesthetic  intuition,  and  it  is  only  by  reflection  and  analysis 
that  I  arrive  at  the  appreciation  of  the  beautiful.  But  it  seems  to 

*  In  all  extracts  from  Proudhon,  in  the  course  of  this  paper,  I  have 
condensed  whenever  possible. 


Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art.  309 

me  that  the  faculties  of  taste  and  understanding  are  not  so  far  dis- 
tinct that  one  cannot  supply  the  place  of  the  other. 

"  My  quality  of  judge  established,  I  no  not  hesitate  to  produce 
my  decisions." 

The  theory  that  ignorant  persons  may  judge  of  art  is  so 
popular  that  Proudhon  will  carry  the  suffrages  of  most 
readers  with  him,  and  it  is  of  little  use  to  oppose  him  by 
argument,  because  his  theory  flatters  the  self-esteem  of  the 
public,  whilst  the  contrary  one  wounds  it.  I  by  no  means 
accuse  Proudhon  of  uttering  this  doctrine  with  a  view  to 
flatter  his  readers,  for  he  never  condescended  to  any  arts  of 
that  kind,  but  the  doctrine  is  very  agreeable  to  them.  If 
you  tell  people  that  they  are  good  judges  of  art  they  like 
you  for  it,  and  willingly  listen ;  if  you  tell  them  that  they 
are  incompetent,  and  leave  them  to  infer  that  you  consider 
yourself  competent,  they  become  animated  by  less  kindly 
sentiments  towards  you,  and  attribute  your  unacceptable 
doctrine  to  personal  arrogance  and  conceit. 

To  judge  of  any  picture,  statue,  drawing,  or  engraving, 
three  distinct  kinds  of  knowledge  are  needed.  First,  an 
accurate  acquaintance  with  the  natural  facts  which  ought, 
in  that  particular  subject,  to  have  been  represented ;  sec- 
ondly, some  considerable  practical  acquaintance  with  the 
means  employed  to  represent  the  facts ;  thirdly,  a  philo- 
sophical comprehension  of  the  intellectual  or  imaginative 
element  in  the  work. 

Take,  for  example,  a  simple  pastoral  subject,  the  picture ' 
of  "  Ploughing  in  the  Nivernais,"  by  Rosa  Bonheur,  in  the 
Luxembourg.  The  facts  to  be  known  by  any  writer  who 
would  criticise  that  picture  include  the  construction  and 
movements  of  oxen,  then  (in  a  less  degree  in  this  instance 
because  they  are  clothed)  the  construction  and  movements 
of  men,  after  that  the  construction  of  trees  and  earth,  with 
the  peculiar  forms  which  the  earth  takes  when  it  comes  off 
the  mould-iron,  as  Woolner  says,  "  wave  lapping  wave 
without  a  sound."  The  sky,  too,  must  have  been  studied, 
and  it  would  be  no  disadvantage  if  the  writer  knew 
something  about  ploughs,  and  had  seen  ploughing  in  the 


310  Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art. 

country  represented  (the  Nivernais),  and  were  able  him- 
self to  harness  a  yoke  of  oxen  after  the  manner  of  the 
peasants  in  those  parts,  that  he  might  know  whether  Rosa 
Bonheur  had  made  no  mistake  in  that  matter.  Then,  as 
to  color,  though  the  critic  cannot  be  a  colorist,  he  must 
have  made  colored  studies  of  oxen  and  ploughed  land,  or 
else  he  will  have  no  notion  of  what  the  real  color  of  them 
is.  Lastly,  as  to  the  philosophy  of  art,  he  must  know 
enough  of  that  to  be  able  to  assign  its  due  place  to  the 
work  in  the  history  of  art,  and  to  determine  how  far  it  is 
imaginative  and  poetical,  or  if  only  prosaic  and  observant, 
what  sort  of  prose  it  is,  and  what  separates  it  from  other 
prose,  such,  for  instance,  as  that  of  Courbet.  Criticism  is 
nothing  else  than  the  application  of  a  set  of  tests,  which 
tests  are  numerous  and  delicate  in  porportion  to  the  infor- 
mation and  feeling  of  the  critic.  These  tests  are  not  little 
rules  easily  learned,  as  some  imagine,  but  results  of  elaborate 
knowledge  of  very  various  kinds.  Now  it  never  happens 
that  a  critic  is  in  full  possession  of  all  the  knowledge  needed 
for  just  criticism  ;  he  has  the  means  of  applying  one  or  two 
tests  it  may  be,  but  these  are  not  enough  for  the  complete 
estimation  of  the  work.  What  is  called  the  public  estima- 
tion of  a  work  depends  ultimately  on  the  success  with  which 
it  may  have  passed  the  successive  ordeals  of  different  tests 
applied  by  critics  of  various  competence.  The  weakness 
of  most  art  criticism  lies  in  its  ignorance  of  those  scientific 
and  technical  facts  which  supply  the  only  accurate  tests. 
Common  criticism  is  a  mere  expression  of  personal  liking 
or  aversion,  and  deserves  very  slight  attention  indeed. 
Proudhon  would  elevate  this  criticism  by  Ignorance  to  the 
rank  of  something  serious  that  artists  are  bound  to  obey ; 
that  is  he  would  have  Ignorance  dictate  to  Knowledge.  It 
has  done  so  to  some  extent,  but  to  a  much  less  extent  than 
Proudhon  imagined ;  and  every  year  the  authority  of 
Ignorance  diminishes.  The  public  now  knows  the  dif- 
ference, in  England  at  least,  between  a  critic  who  has 
grounds  for  what  he  advances  and  a  writer  who  expresses 
merely  his  personal  fancy  or  caprice,  and  it  desires  nothing 


Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art.  311 

so  much  as  to  find  and  follow  competent  guidance.  The 
multitude  is  not  the  supreme  judge.  Its  suffrage  is  not 
the  only  one  that  artists  aspire  to  and  for  which  art  creates. 
True  artists  aspire  to  the  judgment  of  those  who  are  sev- 
erally competent  in  the  various  specialities  of  criticism. 
When  these  have  severally  judged  the  work  from  their 
various  points  of  view,  a  general  conclusion  as  to  its  merit 
is  drawn  from  the  mass  of  their  testimony,  and  this  general 
conclusion,  more  or  less  modified  by  time,  passes  current 
always  in  the  end.  It  is  encouraging  to  remember  the 
establishment  of  Turner's  fame  in  spite  of  the  popular 
verdict.  He  did  not  "  obey  "  the  multitude,  he  had  "  the 
pretension  to  impose  himself  on  its  fancy  instead  of  fol- 
lowing it ; "  he  did  "  dare  to  refuse  its  decisions."  The 
multitude  "  despised  his  art  with  all  its  marvels  "  and  "  re- 
pudiated it."  And  with  what  result  ?  All  the  popular 
outcry  and  clamor  were  in  vain,  the  few  artists  and  con- 
noisseurs who  understood  Turner  silenced  the  thousands 
who  could  not  comprehend  him,  and  now,  no  thanks  to 
any  popular  favor,  his  immortal  name  is  engraven  where 
they  cannot  efface  it,  high  in  the  House  of  Fame.  There 
is  nothing  in  life  more  wonderful,  more  sublime,  more 
cheering  to  our  faith  and  hope,  than  the  certain  ultimate 
victory  of  the  few  who  know. 

Holding  these  views,  believing  that  to  produce  art  criti- 
cism of  any  value  needs  laborious  preparation,  it  follows  that 
I  cannot  allow  to  Proudhon,  who  was  entirely  ignorant  of 
art,  the  title  of  art  critic  in  any  serious  sense  at  all.  And 
yet  it  seems  well  that  he  should  have  left  us  his  impres- 
sions on  the  subject,  because  he  wrote  so  very  sincerely, 
and  sincere  writing  about  art,  by  thoughtful  persons,  is 
lamentably  rare.  Proudhon  at  least  tells  us  what  an  igno- 
rant thinker  worked  out  in  his  own  head,  and  in  the  course 
of  his  thinking  by  the  sharp  penetrating  faculty  of  his  mind, 
he  got  down  to  one  or  two  obscure  truths  which  are  likely 
ere  long  to  become  widely  known,  at  least  to  the  more 
thoughtful  class  of  readers.  He  was  the  first  to  announce 
in  print  the  relation  between  some  modern  art  and  the  new 
Positive  Philosophy.  He  fished  up  that  murex,  and  de- 


312  Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art. 

serves  great  credit  for  it/*  His  faculty  as  an  art  philoso- 
pher was  naturally  large,  but  there  is  no  evidence  that  he 
appreciated  artistic  performance.  I  mean  that  as  a  thinker 
he  could  grasp  the  historical  relation  of  school  to  school, 
but  as  an  observer  I  doubt  whether  he  had  that  delicate 
insight  which  can  justly  compare  picture  with  picture. 

Proudhon's  assertion  that  authority  in  art  is  inadmissible 
is  not  absolutely  true,  but  an  important  truth  lies  hidden 
in  the  loose  and  too  general  phrase.  Any  pretension  to 
universal  authority  in  art  is  inadmissible,  because  no  human 
being  in  the  course  of  one  life  can  acquire  the  knowledge 
necessary  to  a  universal  art  critic.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
authority  on  special  matters  naturally  asserts  itself,  and  is 
always  recognized  so  soon  as  the  grounds  of  it  are  ascer- 
tained. In  a  cultivated  age  authority  on  particular  subjects 
is  allowed  to  all  who  can  give  evidence  of  superior  knowl- 
edge on  those  especial  subjects.  What  Proudhon  rebelled 
against  in  his  heart  was  the  authority  of  superiority ;  but 
such  rebellion  is  always  vain,  because  nature  herself  insti- 
tuted and  ever  sustains  that  just  authority. 

The  place  due  to  the  Fine  Arts  amongst  the  occupations 
of  men  would  naturally  occupy  a  thinker  who  busied  him- 
self so  incessantly  with  social  questions.  The  following 
passages  show  how  severely  Proudhon  regarded  art  and 
artists  from  his  point  of  view  as  a  social  moralist. 

"  Whether  painters  represent  drunken  priests  as  Courbet  does, 
or  priests  saying  mass  like  Flandrin,  or  peasants,  soldiers,  horses, 
or  trees,  or  effigies  of  antique  personages  of  whom  we  know  next  to 
nothing,  or  heroes  of  ribvels,  or  fairies,  angels,  gods,  products  of 
fancy  or  superstition,  —  in  what  can  all  that  seriously  interest  us  ? 
What  good  does  it  do  to  our  government,  our  manners,  our  comfort, 
our  progress?  Does  it  become  serious  minds  to  concern  them- 
selves with  these  costly  trifles  ?  Have  we  time  and  money  to 
spare  ?  Certainly,  we  practical  and  sensible  people,  not  initiated 
in  the  mysteries  of  art,  have  a  right  to  ask  this  of  artists,  not  to 
contradict  them,  but  in  order  to  be  edified  about  what  they  think  of 
themselves,  and  what  they  expect  from  us.  Nobody,  however, 
seems  to  have  given  a  clear  answer  on  these  points. 

*  It  may  be  permitted  me  to  observe  that  I  had  an  article  on  the  Posi- 
tive Philosophy  of  the  Fine  Arts  in  preparation,  before  the  publication  of 
Proudhon's  book. 


Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art.  313 


"Every  two  years, — formerly  it  was  every  year, — the  government 
regales  the  public  with  a  great  exhibition  of  painting,  statuary,  &c. 
Industry  never  had  such  frequent  exhibitions,  and  she  has  not  had 
them  nearly  so  long.  In  fact,  it  is  an  artists'  fair  —  putting  their 
products  on  sale,  and  waiting  anxiously  for  buyers.  For  these 
exceptional  solemnities  the  government  appoints  a  jury  to  verify 
the  works  sent,  and  name  the  best.  On  the  recommendation  of 
this  jury  the  government  gives  medals  of  gold  and  silver,  decora- 
tions, honorable  mentions,  money  rewards,  pensions.  There  are, 
for  distinguished  artists,  according  to  their  recognized  talents  and 
their  age,  places  at  Rome,  in  the  Academy,  in  the  Senate.  All 
these  expenses  are  paid  by  us,  the  profane,  like  those  of  the  army 
and  the  country  roads.  Nevertheless,  it  is  probable  that  no  one, 
either  on  the  Jury,  or  in  the  Academy,  or  in  the  Senate,  or  at 
Rome,  would  be  in  a  condition  to  justify  this  part  of  the  budget  by 
an  intelligible  definition  of  art  and  its  function,  either  private  or 
public.  Why  can't  we  leave  artists  to  their  own  business,  and  not 
trouble  ourselves  about  them  more  than  we  do  about  rope-dancers  ? 
Perhaps  it  would  be  the  best  way  to  find  out  exactly  what  they  are 
worth. 

"  The  more  one  reflects  on  this  question  of  art  and  artists,  the 
more  one  meets  matter  for  astonishment.  M.  Ingres,  a  master 
painter,  like  M.  Courbet,  has  become,  by  the  sale  of  his  works,  rich 
and  celebrated.  It  is  evident  that  he,  at  any  rate,  has  not  merely 
worked  for  fancy's  sake.  Quite  lately  he  has  been  admitted  to  the 
Senate  as  one  of  the  great  notables  of  the  land.  His  fellow-towns- 
men at  Montauban  have  voted  him  a  golden  crown.  Here  is  paint- 
ing, then,  put  on  the  same  level  as  war,  religion,  science,  and 
industry.  But  why  has  M.  Ingres  been  considered  the  first  amongst 
his  peers  ?  If  you  consult  artists  and  writers  about  his  value,  most 
of  them  will  tell  you  that  he  is  the  chief,  much  questioned,  of  a 
school  fallen  into  discredit  for  the  last  thirty  years,  the  classical 
school ;  that  to  this  school  has  succeeded  another,  which  in  its 
turn,  became  the  fashion,  the  romantic  school,  headed  by  Delacroix, 
who  is  just  dead ;  that  this  one  has  given  away,  and  is  now  partly 
replaced  by  the  realist  school,  of  which  Courbet  is  the  principal 
representative.  So  that  upon  the  glory  of  Ingres,  the  venerable 
representative  of  classicism,  are  superposed  two  younger  schools, 
two  new  generations  of  artists,  as  two  or  three  new  strata  of  earth 
are  superposed  on  the  animals  contemporary  with  the  last  deluge. 
Why  has  the  government  chosen  M.  Ingres,  an  antediluvian,  rather 
than  Delacroix  or  Courbet  ?  Is  art  an  affair  of  archeology,  or  is  it 
like  politics  which  has  always  been  horrified  by  new  ideas  and 
walked  with  its  eyes  turned  backwards  in  history  ?  If  so,  then  the 
last  comers  in  painting  would  be  the  worst.  Then  what  is  the  good 
of  encouragement  and  recompenses'?  Let  things  go  their  own 
way,  unless  we  would  follow  the  advice  of  Plato  and  Rousseau, 
and  ostracise  this  '  world  of  art,'  sod  of  parasites  and  corruption." 


314  Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art. 

All  this  seems  severe,  but  is  very  easily  answered.  Hap- 
pily for  the  human  race,  it  is  guided  in  the  right  direction 
by  its  instincts  before  it  has  learned  to  account  for  its  own 
doings  by  philosophical  reasoning.  Those  who  possess  the 
instinct  which  either  creates  or  appreciates  works  of  art  do 
not  need  to  quiet  their  own  consciences  by  any  argument 
about  the  wisdom  "or  utility  of  paying  attention  to  the  fine 
arts.  The  art  faculty,  like  every  other  great  faculty  of  our 
nature,  carries  within  itself  the  assurance  of  its  own  law- 
fulness. If  any  argument  is  needed  to  satisfy  those  un- 
fortunates who  can  only  think  and  never  feel,  here  is  one, 
such  as  it  is.  Nature  is  always  artistic,  the  very  com- 
monest things  have  artistic  invention.  A  rose  is  beautiful 
and  a  toad  is  ugly,  both  are  artistic.  Now,  so  long  as 
man's  work  is  unartistic,  it  is  a  discord  in  the  universe, 
hence  artists  serve  the  purpose  of  bringing  man  and  his 
belongings  into  visible  harmony  with  nature.  If  you  an- 
swer, "  What  is  the  good  of  being  brought  into  harmony 
with  nature  ?  we  don't  care  about  artistic  qualities  even  in 
nature  itself;"  we  can  only  say  that  art  does  not  work 
exclusively  for  you,  but  that  very  many  other  persons  find 
in  it  a  sensible  benefit  and  an  addition  to  happiness.  It 
is  easily  shown  also  that  art  adds  to  human  knowledge, 
by  giving  it  visibility  and  precision,  but  to  do  this  the  art 
itself  must  be  conscientiously  accurate,  which  until  very 
lately  it  has  seldom  been.  Indeed,  the  mission  of  art  to 
humanity  is  only  just  begun,  and  it  is  less  easy  as  yet  to 
point  to  definite  services  rendered  than  it  probably  will  be 
a  few  centuries  hence.  Even  now,  however,  we  owe  to 
many  deceased  artists  much  interesting  and  often  really 
valuable  information.  Such  an  institution  as  the  English 
National  Portrait  Gallery  is  a  proof  of  the  utility  of  art  as 
a  record. 

These  questionings  of  Proudhon  as  to  the  utility  of  art 
are,  however,  rather  introductory  to  his  own  answer  than 
the  real  questionings  of  an  inquirer  who  could  give  no 
answer,  and  believed  that  none  could  be  given.  Proudhon 
defines  art  as  "  an  idealist  representation  of  nature  and 
ourselves  with  a  view  to  the  physical  and  moral  advance- 


Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art.  315 

ment  (perfectionnement)  of  our  species"  This  is  one  of  the 
best  definitions  hitherto  constructed.  It  includes  natural 
truth,  idealism,  landscape  art,  figure  design,  and  the  in- 
fluence of  art  as  drawing  attention  to,  and  leading  towards, 
the  improvement  of  our  physical  and  moral  life.  It  misses, 
however,  the  affections  and  sentiments  which  cause  the 
production  of  all  art  that  touches  us  closely.  Art  is  the 
expression  of  the  artist's  delight  in  what  he  sees  or  im- 
agines, and  an  attempt  to  communicate  the  same  delight  to 
others,  with  a  view  to  their  sympathy  and  applause.  Then 
Proudhon  considers  the  aesthetic  faculty  one  of  secondary 
rank,  merely  an  auxiliary  in  the  development  of  humanity, 
rather  a  feminine  than  a  virile  faculty,  and  predestined  to 
obedience.  Here  also  he  is  undoubtedly  right  from  the 
political  or  social  point  of  view,  which  estimates  faculties 
according  to  their  direct  governmental  power.  The  aes- 
thetic power  influences  only  those  who  by  their  natural  con- 
stitution are  created  the  subjects  of  such  influence ;  its 
weakness  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  only  governs  those  who  are 
willing  to  be  governed.  Political  power,  on  the  other 
hand,  governs  also  the  unwilling.  The  difference  between 
the  two  may  be  accurately  estimated  by  the  difference  in 
national  importance  between  the  Royal  Academy  and  the 
House  of  Commons.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  considered 
apart  from  the  question  of  power  over  others,  I  am  not 
sure  that  the  aesthetic  faculty,  especially  when  in  its 
highest  form  of  artistic  invention,  can  be  considered  a 
secondary  or  an  unmasculine  faculty.  Be  assured  that  to 
paint  a  great  picture  or  write  a  great  poem  is  manly  work 
in  the  strongest  sense.  Shakspeare  and  Michael  Angelo 
were  certainly  manly ;  and  however  firm  our  manhood,  it 
is  never  too  mighty  for  the  great  claims  which  the  exigen- 
cies of  noble  art  make  upon  it. 

The  wisdom  of  such  governmental  encouragement  of  art 
as  Proudhon  questions  may  indeed  be  doubted,  but  the 
course  pursued  by  the  Emperor  in  selecting  Ingres  for 
honors  rather  than  Courbet,  or  even  Delacroix,  is  marked 
by  Louis  Napoleon's  usual  tact  and  prudence.  Ingres  may 
be  an  "antediluvian,"  but  his  merits,  such  as  they  are, 


316  Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art. 

have  the  advantage  of  universal  recognition,  whilst  the 
merits  of  Delacroix  and  Courbet  are  strongly  disputed. 
The  great  evil  of  all  governmental  recognition  of  contem- 
porary art  is  that  persons  in  authority  can  only  honor 
"  safe  "  men,  and  these  are  seldom  the  greatest,  never  the 
most  original.  Calcott  was  a  safe  man  and  got  knighted  ; 
Turner  was  not  a  safe  man,  and  thirty  years  ago,  any  offi- 
cial recognition  of  him  would  have  excited  much  clamor, 
which  would  have  caused  the  common  people  to  doubt  the 
judgment  of  their  rulers.  Besides,  it  does  not  follow  that 
antediluvians  should  be  necessarily  worse  than  their  suc- 
cessors ;  their  only  fault  is  to  have  aimed  at  qualities  now 
no  longer  in  fashion  amongst  artists  ;  but  these  qualities 
may  nevertheless  be  desirable,  and  to  have  aimed  at  them 
may  have  been  to  render  permanent  service  to  the  arts, 
even  though  they  are  for  the  present  temporarily  lost  sight 
of  in  the  pursuit  of  more  novel  aims.  As  to  the  fitness  of 
the  kind  of  honor  bestowed  on  Ingres  there  is  still,  how- 
ever, room  for  doubt.  The  fine  arts  do  not  teach  men  how 
to  govern  a  country ;  and  the  severe  study  of  form,  which 
is  Ingres'  sole  claim  to  consideration,  is  not  enough  to  make 
him  vote  wisely  on  such  questions  as  will  come  before  him 
in  his  senatorial  capacity. 

Proudhon's  conception  of  art  was  large.  He  perceived 
the  immense  extension  of  the  aesthetic  faculty  in  man.  He 
saw  that  not  merely  painting  or  sculpture,  but  every  thing 
that  aims  at  the  adornment  of  life,  springs  from  that  faculty. 
The  truth  is,  that  whenever  we  decorate  a  building  or  a 
piece  of  joiners'  work  with  the  simplest  moulding,  when- 
ever we  enrich  our  dress  with  the  least  bit  of  braid  or 
ribbon,  or  even  put  a  wild  flower  in  a  button-hole,  we  are 
attempting  to  give  satisfaction  to  the  artistic  instinct.  A 
manufacturer  at  Oldham  put  a  cornice  round  the  top  of  his 
factory  at  a  cost  of  £1,500.  That  was  poor  art,  but  it  was 
an  attempt  at  art,  and  sprang  from  the  instinct  which 
erected  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon.  The  duty  of  artists 
and  writers  on  art  is  to  guide  this  blind  instinct  to  a  rational 
activity.  Thus  we  might  suggest  .to  a  savage,  that  instead 
of  carving  and  staining  his  own  face,  he  would  do  better  to 


Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art.  317 

carve  and  stain  wooden  furniture ;  and  it  is  the  duty  of 
every  writer  on  art  in  the  present  age  to  tell  the  people  who 
invent  the  prevalent  fashions  in  female  dress,  that  although 
the  desire  for  becoming  costume  is  a  right  instinct,  the 
existing  mode  is  a  disease  of  it. 

Proudhon's  chapter  on  the  Ideal  is  somewhat  unsatis- 
factory. So  far  as  I  understand  the  Ideal,  it  is  the  typical 
or  perfect  form  to  which  nature  tends.  But  there  may  be 
various  ideals;  indeed,  they  are  infinitely  numerous.  Na- 
ture never  quite  reaches  them  in  any  individual  creature ; 
but  very  clearly  indicates  them.  Proudhon  believed  that 
there  is  Idealism  in  every  thing,  even  in  a  photograph  of 
raw  butcher's  meat,  chopped  in  pieces.  I  confess  I  see  no 
Ideal  whatever  in  nature  or  in  photography,  but  only  hints 
giving  us  a  clue  to  the  Ideal.  It  is  scarcely  worth  while, 
however,  to  discuss  this  point,  on  which  there  exists  little 
difference  of  opinion  amongst  artists.  The  difference  which 
does  exist,  and  which  distinguishes  modern  art  from  the 
antique,  is  that  we  recognize  a  greater  quantity  or  variety 
of  ideals  than  the  ancients  did.  This  is  of  importance, 
because  it  makes  our  aims  more  various  and  our  judgments 
more  liberal  than  theirs. 

"  For  philosophers  and  savants,"  says  Proudhon,  "  the  mode  of 
expression  ought  to  be  rigorously  exact.  Artistic  expression,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  augmentative  or  diminutive,  laudatory  or  depre- 
ciatory. So  that  the  slavery  to  the  pure  idea,  which  characterizes 
philosophy,  science  and  industry,  is  just  what  destroys  the  aesthetic 
sentiment,  the  ideal,  whilst  artistic  license  gives  birth  to  it. 

"  The  object  of  art  is  not  merely  to  make  us  admire  beautiful 
things.  The  attainment  of  beauty  is  only  the  debut  of  the  artist. 
Our  moral  life  consists  of  quite  other  things  than  this  superficial 
and  sterile  contemplation.  There  are  the  variety  of  human  actions 
and  passions,  prejudices,  beliefs,  conditions,  castes,  family,  religion, 
domestic  comedy,  public  tragedy,  national  epic,  revolutions.  All 
that  is  as  much  matter  for  art  as  for  philosophy. 

"Art  is  essentially  concrete,  particularist,  and  determinative." 

All  that  is  very  true  and  good,  one  or  two  phrases  are 
even  deep  and  show  unusual  insight.  The  way  in  which 
Proudhon  defines  the  change  which  the  Fine  Arts  love  to 
make  in  all  their  materials  is  very  accurate.  "  Artistic 


318  Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art. 

expression,"  he  says,  "  is  augmentative  or  diminutive,  laud- 
atory or  depreciatory.  His  other  assertion,  that  "  the  at- 
tainment of  beauty  is  only  the  debut  of  the  artist,"  is  more 
likely  to  be  disputed.  Beauty  and  pleasure  are  considered 
by  many  to  be  the  end  of  art ;  truth  the  end  of  science ; 
morality  the  end  of  philosophy ;  whereas  Proudhon,  being  a 
seeker  after  truth,  and  a  moralist,  will  have  it  that  art  also 
should  seek  after  these  things.  I  reserve  the  discussion  of 
this  point  till  we  come  to  Proudhon's  more  elaborate  de- 
velopment of  his  doctrine.  The  last  sentence,  "  art  is 
essentially  concrete,  particularist,  and  determinative,"  ex- 
presses a  truth  too  often  lost  sight  of  by  such  critics  as 
Proudhon  himself,  who  forget  that  the  particular  truths 
and  concrete  forms  of  art  can  only  be  met  by  particular 
and,  so  to  speak,  concrete  criticism.  Vague  abstractions, 
or  even  abstractions  which,  considered  philosophically,  are 
not  vague,  aid  us  little  in  our  attempts  to  estimate  produc- 
tions which  always  come  before  us  with  definite  forms. 
Philosophy,  or  at  least  the  broad  philosophical  spirit,  is  a 
necessary  element  in  good  art  criticism,  but  the  knowledge 
of  special  facts  is  also  indispensable  to  any  one  who  would 
speak  of  an  art  which  is  "  essentially  concrete,  particularist, 
and  determinative." 

Proudhon  is  less  happy  in  a  curious  attempt  he  makes 
to  distinguish  the  Ideal  from  the  Idea. 

"  The  Ideal  is  distinguished  from  the  Idea,  because  the  Idea  is 
an  abstract  type,  whilst  the  Ideal  is  the  clothing  given  to  the  Idea 
by  the  imagination  or  sentiment.  For  example :  — 

"  IDEA  :  It  is  safer  to  live  in  an  humble  condition  than  in  a  high 
one.  Ideal :  Fable  of  the  oak  and  the  reed,  combat  of  the  rats  and 
the  weasels,  when  the  princes  of  the  rat  army,  with  their  plumes, 
not  being  able  to  get  into  the  holes,  were  all  massacred. 

"  IDEA  :  Maternal  tenderness.  Ideal :  a  hen  and  her  chickens  ; 
the  pelican ;  opossums ;  a  woman  giving  suck  to  her  child ;  the 
lion  at  Florence." 

This  is  very  wide  of  the  mark.  Proudhon  first  gives  an 
abstract  moral  notion,  and  calls  that  the  Idea ;  then  an 
artistic  illustration  of  it  in  visible  shape,  and  calls  that  the 
Ideal.  Turning  to  Liddell  and  Scott  for  reference  to'a 


Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art.  319 

Greek  author  who  employed  the  word  idea  in  something 
like  its  modern  artistic  sense,  I  find  that  "  in  the  Platonic 
Philosophy  the  ideai  were  not  only  iidq,  but  something 
more,  viz.,  the  perfect  archetypes,  models,  or  patterns  (Lat. 
formce),  of  which,  respectively,  all  created  things  were  the 
imperfect  antitypes  or' representations."  The  word  idea,  in 
art  at  least,  does  not  mean  a  thought  or  a  moral  ^proposi- 
tiou,  but  a  form  seen  in  the  mind.  So  far  as  a  work  of  art 
realizes  this  inner  vision  it  is  ideal.  Realism  is  the  sur- 
render to  outward  vision  ;  idealism  is  the  surrender  to  the 
inward  vision.  Proudhon's  examples  of  ideals  are  not 
necessarily  ideals  at  all ;  they  might  have  been  examples 
of  servile  realism.  He  confounds  thought  and  ideality, 
just  as  our  vulgar  language  continually  confounds  them. 
People  say  that  they  have  ideas  when  they  have  only 
thoughts.  By  an  extension  of  meaning  which  is  metaphor- 
ical we  talk  also  of  musical  ideas,  because  our  language  is 
not  critically  accurate  enough  to  have  a  special  word  for 
that  which  the  musician  hears  in  his  imagination.  Proud- 
hon's "ideas  "are  only  thoughts,  or .  moral  notions;  and 
his  "  ideals "  only  instances,  or  illustrations.  But  when 
Phidias  imagined  Jupiter,  he  saw  in  his  mind  a  true  artistic 
idea;  and  when  he  wrought  the  great  image  in  ivory  and 
gold,  he  made  a  work  which,  as  an  attempt  to  realize  that 
idea,  was,  so  far  as  he  approached  it,  ideal. 

Since  Proudhon  was  before  all  things  a  moralist,  seeking 
a  definite  moral  utility  in  every  thing,  and  approving  every 
thing  only  just  so  far  as  it  seemed  to  him  helpful  to  moral 
progress,  and  since  he  by  no  means  loved  or  understood 
art  for  itself,  but  only  as  a  force  or  influence  which  might 
ameliorate  men,  it  is  evident  that  the  principle  of  art  for 
art  must  have  been,  in  the  highest  degree,  repugnant  to 
him. 

"  Art  for  Art,  as  it  has  been  called,  not  having  its  lawfulness  in 
itself,  and  resting  on  nothing  is  nothing.  It  is  a  debauch  of  the 
heart  and  dissolution  of  the  mind.  Separated  from  right  and  duty, 
cultivated  and  sought  after  as  the  highest  thought  of  the  soul  and 
the  supreme  manifestation  of  humanity,  art,  or  the  ideal,  shorn  of 
the  best  part  of  itself,  reduced  to  nothing  more  than  an  excitement 


320  Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art. 


of  fancy  and  the  senses,  is  the  principle  of  sin,  the  origin  of  all  slavery, 
the  poisoned  source  whence  flow,  according  to  the  Bible,  all  the  fornications 
and  abominations  of  the  earth.  From  this  point  of  view  the  pursuit  of 
letters  and  of  the  arts  has  been  so  often  marked  by  historians  and 
moralists  as  the  cause  of  the  corruption  of  manners  and  the  deca- 
dence of  states  ;  it  is  for  the  same  reason  that  certain  religions  — 
Magism,  Judaism,  Protestantism  —  have  excluded  it  from  their 
temples.  Art  for  art,  I  say,  the  verse  for  the  verse,  the  style  for 
the  style,  the  form  for  the  form,  fancy  for  fancy ;  all  these  vanities, 
which  eat  up  an  age  like  a  disease,  are  vice  in  all  its  refinement,  evil  in 
its  quintessence.  Carried  into  religion  and  morality,  that  is  called 
mysticism,  idealism,  quietism,  and  romanticism :  a  contemplative 
disposition  where  the  most  subtle  pride  unites  itself  with  the  most 
profound  impurity,  and  which  all  the  true  practical  moralists  have 
opposed  with  all  their  energy  —  Voltaire  just  as  much  as  Bossuet." 

This  passage  is  so  powerful,  so  full  of  conviction,  so 
strongly  colored  with  the  little  crystal  of  truth,  which  is 
dissolved  and  disseminated  in  so  much  hot  water  of  fanati- 
cism, that  very  many  good  people  on  reading  it  would  suc- 
cumb at  once,  and  never  dare  to  oppose  to  such  stern  and 
lofty  morality  the  resistance  of  reason  and  common  sense. 
Let  us  examine  for  one  moment  what  the  principle  of  Art 
for  Art  really  is.  It  simply  maintains  that  works  of  art, 
as  such,  are  to  be  estimated  purely  by  their  artistic  qual- 
ities, not  by  qualities  lying  outside  of  art.*  For  instance, 
the  comparative  poetical  rank  of  Byron  and  Bowles  is  not 
to  be  settled  by  a  comparison  of  their  religion  and  morality, 

*  It  is  probable  that  if  Proudhon  were  alive  to  answer  me  he  would 
say  that  his  objection  refers  less  to  the  spirit  in  which  works  of  art  are 
estimated  than  to  the  spirit  in  which  they  are  produced,  that  an  artist  who 
works  for  artistic  ends  alone  is  a  lost  being,  whereas  an  artist  who  works 
for  moral  ends  is*  always  safe.  Unfortunately  for  this  view  it  happens 
that  when  art  makes  itself  secondary  to  any  moral  or  intellectual  purpose, 
it  almost  always,  as  if  of  necessity,  loses  quality  as  art,  and  very  fre- 
quently sinks  so  low  (artistically  speaking)  as  to  get  beneath  the  level  of 
all  that  deserves  the  very  name'of  art.  The  reader  may  remember  Cruik- 
shank's  large  painting  against  drunkenness;  that  was  a  painting  with  a 
praiseworthy  moral  purpose,  but  it  was  not  &  picture,  at  all.  (I  have  called 
it  a  "painting,"  because  airy  piece  of  canvas  covered  with  paint  is  enti- 
tled to  that  designation.)  On  the  other  hand  I  remember  many  pictures 
of  drunken  and  immoral  satyrs,  by  the  great  masters,  which  were  not 
produced  with  that  honorable  wish  to  combat  moral  evil  and  help  moral 
good  which  animated  Cruikshank,  and  yet  were  truly  pictures,  and  as 
such  are  rightly  considered  treasures,  whilst  Cruikshank' s  work  is  worth 
as  much  as  the  last  teetotal  lecture,  and  no  more. 


Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art.  321 

but  of  their  art.  Leslie  used  to  say  that  he  remembered  a 
versifier  who  considered  himself  a  better  poet  than  Byron, 
because  Byron's  works  often  offended  against  morality, 
whereas  his  own  were  perfectly  unexceptionable  on  that 
score.  But  amongst  true  critics,  however  desirable  purity 
may  appear  to  them,  poetry  is  judged  as  poetry,  painting  as 
painting,  music  as  music,  art  as  art.  So  we  say  that 
naughty  Alfred  de  Musset  was  a  poet,  because  he  wrought 
exquisite  poetical  work ;  and  we  say  of  good  Mr.  Tupper 
that  he  is  no  poet,  because  he  has  not  those  qualities  of  ear 
and  intellect  and  imagination  which  are  necessary  to  make 
one.  If  Mr.  Tupper  were  very  naughty,  and  poor  Alfred  de 
Musset  a  canonized  saint  in  heaven,  that  would  not  in  the 
least  affect  our  estimate  of  them  as  artists.  It  is  in  vain  to 
write  Jeremiads  against  this.  A  painter  who  paints 
supremely  well,  however  few  or  feeble  the  moral  lessons  he 
inculcates,  is  sure  of  applause  and  immortality.  What 
moral  lesson  did  Rubens  teach  ?  What  sermonizing  is 
there  in  Titian  ?  Even  their  sacred  subjects  are  merely 
treated  as  artistic  motives,  and  how  utterly  worldly  they  both 
were,  how  fond  of  pomp  and  vanity,  how  full  of  the  lust  of 
the  flesh,  the  desire  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride  of  life ! 
Yet  they  are  the  princes  of  art;  and  the  preachings, 
and  the  teachings,  the  inculcated  lessons,  the  elab- 
orate allegories,  the  everlasting  impertinences  of  inop- 
portune counsel  that  fill  our  modern  exhibitions  will  all 
be  swept  into  deserved  oblivion,  whilst  these  great  men 
remain. 

When  Proudhon  says  that  "art  for  art  has  not  its  law- 
fulness in  itself,  and  rests  on  nothing,"  he  forgets  that  art 
rests  upon  nature,  and  that  truth  is  essential  to  it.  The 
two  great  artists  whom  I  have  just  instanced  as  famous  for 
purely  artistic  qualities  were  pre-eminent  for  their  marvel- 
lous powers  of  observation,  and  memory,  and  vividly  truth- 
ful imagination.  They  are  great  because  they  saw  so 
much,  and  remembered  so  much,  and  because,  when  they 
imagined,  they  imagined  with  such  astonishing  veracity, 
and  could  so  splendidly  set  forth  outwardly  on  canvas  what 
they  had  first  seen  inwardly.  Art  has  its  own  lawfulness, 

21 


322  Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art. 

which  is  dual,  namely,  the  law  of  natural  appearances  and 
the  law  of  artistic  exigencies,  and  both  these  laws  are  so 
vast  and  so  complex  that  it  takes  half  a  lifetime  to  learn 
them.  No  wonder  that  writers  like  Proudhon,  who  prac- 
tise and  advocate  the  art  criticism  of  pure  ignorance  should 
not  even  be  conscious  that  these  great  laws  exist. 

And  even  in  such  technical  matters  as  the  laying  of  a 
touch,  or  the  judgment  with  which  glazing  and  impasto  are 
employed,  or  the  prudence  of  using  light  or  dark  grounds, 
or  whether  it  is  better  to  get  light  transparently  through 
the  colors  or  opaquely  upon  them,  whether  in  water-color 
it  is  better  to  use  the  sponge  or  forego  it,  whether  in  etch- 
ing it  is  wiser  to  obtain  darks  by  depth  of  biting  or  by 
multiplicity  of  lines,  all  such  questions  as  these  depend  for 
their  solution  on  the  one  law  that  the  lest  method  is  always 
that  which  best  renders  the  highest  order  of  truth  consistently 
with  the  permanence  of  the  work.  So  that  even  in  the  way 
we  estimate  the  most  purely  technical  qualities  of  handling 
there  is  an  understood  reference  to  nature.  What  we  call 
quality  in  work  is  a  very  great  thing,  and  implies  very 
great  knowledge  and  observation  of  nature.  Quality  does 
not  rest  on  nothing.  If  a  man  can  spread  half  a  dozen 
square  inches  of  canvas  with  oil  paint  in  such  a  manner  as 
to  put  what  we  call  quality  into  it,  that  man  has  studied 
nature  for  years  and  years. 

And  again,  when  writers  like  Proudhon  consider  the  art 
of  painting  as  of  itself  mere  dissoluteness  of  the  mind,  they 
wholly  forget  the  severe  discipline'  that  is  necessary  to  suc- 
cess in  it.  This  mistake  is  especially  frequent  in  men  who, 
having  only  gone  through  the  usual  discipline  of  school 
education,  consider  the  fine  arts  idleness.  Latin  and  Greek 
are  discipline,  they  know,  but  art  is  only  "  mental  debauch- 
ery." If  such  men  would  try  to  learn  to  draw  in  good  ear- 
nest, they  would  find  out  whether  art  is  a  discipline  or  not. 
Are  these  gentlemen  aware  that  ignorance  lower  than 
theirs  looks  upon  their  own  pursuits  as  they,  in  their 
ignorance,  look  upon  the  pursuits  of  artists  ?  Peasants  and 
field-laborers  almost  always  consider  mental  labor  pure 
idleness.  You  and  I  may  find  a  difficult  author  very  hard 


Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art.  323 

work,  but  the  ploughman  over  the  hedge  thinks  we  have  a 
pleasant,  idle  time  of  it  in  our  easy  chairs. 

Proudhon  makes  a  good  and  valuable  distinction  between 
personal  and  impersonal  work.  The  official  articles  in  the 
Moniteur  he  gives  as  instances  of  impersonal  work,  Mich- 
elet's  "  History  of  the  Revolution  "  as  personal.  Men  of 
genius,  who  always  have  a  strong  personality,  hate  doing 
impersonal  work  ;  and  instinctively  select  those  occupations 
where  their  personality  may  exercise  itself  with  effect.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  a  decided  advantage  to  men  without 
special  genius  to  follow  what  may  be  called  more  impersonal 
occupations ;  they  shelter  themselves  behind  the  strong  shield 
of  custom  or  officialism.  Fine  Art  never  ought  to  do  this  ;  it 
should  always  be  frankly  personal ;  so  ought  most  litera- 
ture. Proudhon  is  right  when  he  says  that  by  his  own 
personality  the  artist  acts  directly  upon  ours,  that  he  has  a 
power  over  us  like  that  of  the  magnetizer  over  the  mag- 
netized, and  that  this  power  is  stronger  and  stronger  as 
the  artist  is  more  and  more  energetically  idealist.  To 
reduce  this  true  doctrine  to  a  concentrated  expression,  we 
may  put  it  that  the  influence  of  an  artist  is  in  proportion  to 
the  energy  of  his  ideality. 

In  a  few  short  chapters,  Proudhon  rapidly  outlines  the 
history  of  art.  Egyptian  art,  according  to  him,  is  alto- 
gether typical,  aiming  only  at  the  fixing  of  types  ;  Grecian 
art  is  the  worship  of  form ;  Middle  Age  art  is  asceticism  ; 
the  Renaissance  was  a  rehabilitation  of  beauty,  an  ambigu- 
ous idealism ;  then  the  Reformation  brought  about  the 
humanizing  of  art,  by  reducing  it  to  seek  its  material  in 
common  life.  Rembrandt,  according  to  Proudhon,  was  the 
Luther  of  painting.  Then  came  the  French  Revolution, 
with  the  great  war  of  the  classics  and  romantics  ;  after  that 
a  long  period  of  utter  confusion  and  irrationality,  out  of 
which  anarchy  sprang  at  last  the  new  school  of  Realism, 
which  Proudhon  regards  as  the  final  salvation  and  renova- 
tion of  art,  the  principle  which  is  ultimately  to  place  it  on 
a  positive  basis  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  rational  spirit 
of  modern  intelligence. 

It  is  especially  interesting  to  find  in  this  historical  sum- 


324  Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art. 

mary  what  Proudhon  thought  of  that  great  and  fruitful 
movement  in  art,  the  Renaissance.  He  considered  it  to 
have  been  a  reaction  against  the  asceticism  of  the  middle 
ages,  and  then  a  development  of  Catholicism  triumphant. 
The  art  of  the  Renaissance  was  the  outward  splendor  and 
blossoming  of  the  full-grown  sovereign  Papacy.  Borrow- 
ing its  means  from  Grecian  art,  it  worked  for  the  glorifica- 
tion of  Papal  Christianity.  In  this  Proudhon  sees  nothing 
unnatural,  Paganism  had  filtered  into  Christianity.  "  All 
religions  have  a  common  basis,  and  on  the  whole  there  is 
but  one  religion.  What  is  made  matter  of  reproach  to 
Italian  Christianity  has  happened  more  or  less  everywhere ; 
every  people  has  retained,  in  embracing  the  new  religion, 
as  much  as  possible  of  its  old  superstition.  Northern 
asceticism  never  got  down  to  Italy,  which  always  remained 
more  Pagan  than  the  rest  of  Kurope."  Proudhon  does  not 
see  much  resemblance  between  the  Venuses  of  ancient  art 
and  the  Madonnas  of  the  Renaissance  ;  he  is  "  in  love " 
with  the  (female)  saints  of  Raphael,  but  not  with  the 
antique  goddesses.  He  has  warmer  sympathy  with  Gothic 
art,  however,  though  "  ascetic,"  and  considers  that  it 

"  Asserted  itself  with  as  much  power  as  its  predecessors  and 
more  sublimity.  The  Renaissance  remains  inferior  to  it  on  the 
grounds  of  geniality,  originality,  and  artistic  idea,  because  in 'the 
immense  majority  of  its  productions  it  had  for  its  object  to  ally 
together  two  most  incompatible  things  —  the  spirituality  of  the 
Christian  sentiment,  and  the  ideality  of  Grecian  figures.  This 
mixture  of  Paganism  and  Christianity,  besides  being  an  inevitable 
reaction  against  Catholic  asceticism,  had  its  utility,  if  only  to  remind 
us  of  antiquity,  reconnect  the  chain  of  the  ages,  form  the  artistic 
communion  of  the  human  race,  and  prepare  us  for  the  Revolution. 
But  it  was  not  the  less  an  entirely  secondary  task. 

"  What  characterizes  the  art  and  time  of  the  Renaissance  is  the 
want  of  principles,  or,  if  you  prefer  it,  a  tolerance  incompatible 
with  the  ardor  of  a  conviction.  The  Church  Triumphant  has 
entered  into  her  repose  and  her  glory ;  it  seems  as  if  the  purifying 
times  of  suffering  would  never  more  return  to  her.  Whether  from 
quietism  or  indifference,  she  protects  equally  works  frankly  Pagan 
and  mystical  conceptions.  A  mixture  of  Paganism  and  spirituality, 
the  art  of  the  Renaissance,  like  that  of  the  Greeks,  arrived  at  the 
idolatrous  worship  of  form." 


Proudhon  as  a  "Writer  on  Art.  325 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  chapter  Proudhon  strongly 
objects  to  the  figures  of  Christ  executed  at  the  period  of 
the  Renaissance;  he  does  not  like  them  at  all,  likes  M. 
Kenan's  Christ  still  less,  and  wants  a  revolutionary  one  of 
the  temper  of  Danton  and  Mirabeau. 

On  the  whole  this  is  a  rational  and  philosophical  way  to 
speak  about  the  Renaissance.  During  our  recent  heat  of 
reaction  against  that  movement  very  many  of  us  have  lost 
sight  of  its  true  character.  Modern  Liberals  ought  to  look 
back  to  the  revival  of  classical  literature,  and  the  practical 
imitation  of  classic  art  which  followed  it,  with  feelings  of 
especial  and  peculiar  gratitude.  It  is  to  that  movement 
that  we  all  owe  our  modern  intellectual  emancipation. 
This  is  proved  by  the  ardent  hostility  with  which  the  ene- 
mies of  modernism  assail  the  Renaissance,  and  by  their 
untiring  endeavors  to  bring  it  into  general  discredit.  It  is 
true  that  the  Renaissance  led  to  a  period  of  license  in 
manners  ;  its  palaces  were  not  houses  of  purity,  nor  its 
great  luxury  without  sin  ;  but  it  seems  unhappily  inevitable 
that  every  successive  effort  towards  intellectual  emancipa- 
tion should  be  followed  by  temporary  licentiousness  of  life. 
If  this  is  really  inevitable,  it  is  to  be  regretted  ;  but  the 
mind  of  humanity  must  and  will  advance  in  spite  of  these 
occasional  disturbances  of  moral  equilibrium.  There  are 
signs  even  now  of  something  of  this  kind  preparing  itself 
for  us,  a  new  intellectual  movement  which  is  likely  to  be 
accompanied  by  some  relaxation,  in  conduct.  What  is  cer- 
tain is  that  without  the  Renaissance  and  the  secular  studies 
which  it  fostered,  modern  science  and  modern  art  would 
have  been  still  unknown  to  us,  and  Europe  would  have 
stiffened  into  a  Gothic  China  or  Japan. 

But  the  Renaissance,  in  turning  towards  the  literature 
and  art  of  the  ancients,  fell  into  empty  idealism,  an  ideal- 
ism of  externals.  The  art  of  the  great  time  of  the  Renais- 
sance had  little  apparent  connection  with  the  actual  life  of 
the  age  it  flourished  in.  Proudhon  quotes  a  saying,  at- 
tributed to  Raphael,  that  the  business  of  art  is  not  to 
represent  things  as  nature  makes  them,  but  as  she  ought 
to  make  them ;  and  Proudhon  attributes  the  curious  mix- 


326  Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art. 

ture  of  Catholicism  and  Pagan  mythology  which  distin- 
guishes the  art  of  the  Renaissance  to  this  spirit  of  idealism, 
which  was  also  the  cause,  in  his  opinion,  of  the  moral  cor- 
ruption which  immediately  followed  that  movement. 

The  effect  of  the  Reformation  upon  art  was  to  make  it 
condescend  to  illustrate  the  actual  life  of  its  own  time.  It 
resisted  the  new  Paganism  into  which  art  had  thrown 
itself,  and  drove  artists  to  paint  what  they  saw  by  closing 
the  fields  of  idolatry  and  idealism.  The  title  of  Proud- 
hon's  chapter  on  this  subject  explains  his  view  in  one 
word,  "  La  Reforme ;  I' art  s' humanise"  The  art  of  the 
Renaissance  may  have  been  Divine,  but  it  would  not  con- 
descend to  be  human  ;  aiming  at  what  its  professors  thought 
God  ought  to  have  done,  it  failed  to  perceive  the  qualities 
of  what  he  had  done.  Hence  Proudhon  gives  a  far  higher 
place  to  Rembrandt  than  to  Raphael,  puts  Rembrandt  and 
Luther  together,  and  Shakspeare  along  with  them  in  a 
trinity  of  reformers.  What  he  likes  in  Shakspeare  is  not 
so  much  his  idealism  as  his  true  sympathy  with  common 
life  and  clear  understanding  of  it.  Proudhon  regrets  very 
much  that  France  did  not  join  this  movement,  and  by  no 
means  approves  that  tiresome  pedantry  which  even  down 
to  our  own  day  has  led  Frenchmen  to  ape  the  ancients. 

The  war  of  the  classics  and  romantics  is  not  unfairly 
described  by  Proudhon.  The  following  passages  contain, 
I  believe,  all  that  is  most  valuable  in  the  argument  of  each 
party :  — 

"  The  romantics  reproached  the  established  tradition  with  two 
things :  the  first  with  setting  aside  fifteen  centuries  of  history, 
whence  the  narrowness  of  its  thought,  and  the  want  of  life  and 
originality  and  truth  in  its  works ;  the  second  with  not  even  under- 
standing its  models,  and  being  thereby  thrown  into  endless  contra- 
dictions. Is  the  history  of  Christendom  nothing  1  said  they.  Is 
it  not  as  much  matter  for  poetry  as  the  Pagan  mythology  and  wars  ? 
And  if  it  is  artistic  material,  why  are  we  to  confine  ourselves  to  the 
limits  of  your  classics  ?  And  then  with  your  worship  of  classic 
form,  which  is  your  ideal,  you  sacrifice  expression  which  is  not  less 
important,  and  so  fall  into  conventionalism  and  monotony.-  The 
ancients  carved  their  calm  gods  because  they  believed  in  them ;  we, 
who  seek  action  and  life,  common  labors  and  civic  duties,  cannot 
accept  them  as  models. 


Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art.  327 

"  The  classics  argued  that  art  is  absolute,  universal,  and  eternal ; 
that  its  rules,  which  are  the  laws  of  the  beautiful,  are,  like  the  rules 
of  logic  and  geometry,  immutable ;  that  the  ancients  practised 
them  because  they  understood  them,  and  hence  left  us  incompar- 
able works;  that  there  is  only  one  and  the  same  art  in  which 
nations  more  or  less  succeed ;  that  the  revolutions  of  history  do 
not  necessitate  revolutions  in  literature  and  art,  as  the  Renaissance 
artists  proved ;  that  to  abandon  a  tradition,  consecrated  by  so  many 
masterpieces,  would  be  to  retrograde,  and  substitute  the  worship 
of  the  common-place  for  the  worship  of  form ;  finally,  that  if  the 
new  school  thought  it  could  excel  the  old,  it  had  better  try,  and 
would  then  be  judged  by  its  performance." 

This  last  challenge,  as  Proudhon  remarks,  it  was  danger- 
ous to  accept.  Old  systems  which  have  produced  their  full 
quantity  of  fruit  always  contemptuously  invite  young  sys- 
tems to  show  theirs ;  and  when  there  is  little  or  none  to 
show,  they  would  have  it  believed  that  the  immature  sys- 
tem is  permanently  unproductive.  The  Renaissance  had 
produced  its  fruit ;  romanticism  was  only  just  beginning  to 
produce,  so  that  any  comparison  on  such  ground  was  unfair. 
In  these  days  we  all  see  that  romanticism  was  less  a  sys- 
tem than  an  emancipation,  and  that  its  greatest  service  is 
to  have  opened  the  way  to  the  universality  of  modern 
naturalism.  Classicism  was  a  theory  of  limitation  and 
restraint ;  romanticism  a  deliverance  from  this  ;  naturalism 
is  a  boundless  study  of  human  life  and  the  external  world. 
Traces  of  the  two  first  linger  yet  in  art,  and  some  elderly 
men  on  the  rare  occasions  when  those  once  mighty  watch- 
words are  pronounced  in  these  days,  may  even  still  feel  a 
lingering  ardor  of  partisanship,  such  as  that  great  contro- 
versy kindled  in  their  youth ;  but  for  the  coming  genera- 
tion that  war  will  be  as  much  matter  of  history  as  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses. 

The  part  of  Proudhon's  book  which  will  be  read  with 
most  interest  is  that  extending  from  the  tenth  chapter  to 
the  conclusion.  The  first  nine  chapters  are  full  of  princi- 
ples and  doctrines,  of  which  I  have  just  given  an  abridged 
statement ;  but  in  the  tenth  Proudhon  enters  on  the  direct 
discussion  of  the  merits  of  modern  painters.  His  first 
care  is  to  define  the  two  chief  elements  of  every  work  of 


328  Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art. 

art,  reason  and  taste,  and  to  affirm  that  criticism  ought  to 
possess  these  two  qualities  to  be  able  to  meet  and  measure 
them  duly.  In  the  word  "  reason,"  Proudhon  understands 
both  sciences  and  morality  ;  what  he  calls  "  taste  "  includes 
every  thing  that  is  to  be  measured  by  the  aesthetic  faculty. 
I  doubt  whether  he  realized  the  full  importance  of  the 
sciences  which  treat  of  natural  aspects ;  he  was  certainly 
under  the  impression  that  a  man  might  write  art  criticism 
without  them.  And  I  doubt,  farther,  whether  Proudhon 
rightly  saw  the  limits  of  taste ;  probably  he  included 
under  that  head  much  that  belongs  to  the  higher  faculty  of 
invention,  and  to  the  more  common  gift  of  simple  obser- 
vation. However,  taking  the  two  words  in  his  sense,  we 
are  to  understand  that  in  his  criticism  he  insists  always  on 
the  moral  and  rational  side  of  art,  and  presents  more  re- 
servedly his  aesthetic  judgments,  which,  he  feels,  may  be 
simply  personal.  This  is  the  way  he  himself  puts  it;  a 
barer  statement  would  be  that  he  does  not  judge  art  as  an 
art  critic  at  all,  but  as  a  reasoner  and  moralist. 

Proudhon  is  very  angry  with  Eugene  Delacroix  be- 
cause that  painter  had  the  misfortune  to  aim  at  the  ren- 
dering of  his  own  personal  impressions,  and  to  say  so. 
This  is  resented  as  the  height  of  artistic  presumption. 
An  artist,  according  to  Proudhon,  is  not  to  render  his  own 
impressions,  but  those  of  the  public  —  those  of  P.  J. 
Proudhon  in  particular,  as  one  of  the  public.  The  artist 
is  to  embody,  not  his  own  ideas,  but  the  collective  ideas  of 
his  time. 

This  is  one  of  those  pleasing  theories  which  the  vulgar 
are  always  so  ready  to  accept.  They  like  to  flatter  them- 
selves that  men  of  genius,  after  all,  are  not  their  teachers, 
but  their  servants  and  interpreters.  "  It  is  we,"  they 
delight  to  believe,  "  who  have  great  ideas  ;  the  business  of 
artists  is  to  embody  our  conceptions,  as  the  business  of 
writers  is  to  register  our  opinions."  It  is  true  that  much 
writing  and  painting  attempts  only  this,  and  succeeds  ;  but 
it  is  also  certain  that  great  men  aim  at  something  more 
than  this.  Delacroix  certainly  did,  and  so  far  gave  evi- 
dence of  greatness.  Not  that  his  art  seems  to  me  really 


Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art.  329 

grand  and  noble  ;  it  is  too  agitated,  too  feverish,  too  full 
of  morbid  and  false  energy.  Even  his  color,  which  it  is 
the  fashion  to  admire,  is  generally  violent  and  crude,  and 
his  composition  often  singularly  awkward.  With  better 
health,  and  less  irritability  of  nerve,  he  might  have  been  a 
great  artist,  but  he  had  not  the  calm  of  a  mighty  painter. 
Proudhon  objects  that  he  painted  a  great  variety  of  sub- 
jects which  he,  Proudhon,  does  not  care  about,  and  then 
asks,  "  Comprend-il  mon  idee,  sent-il  mon  ideal,  saisit-il 
mon  impression,  a  moi  profane,  qu'il  s'agit  surtout  d'in- 
teresser,  d'emouvoir,  et  dont  on  sollicite  le  suffrage  ? " 
The  objection  to  this  style  of  criticism  is  that  it  attributes 
far  too  much  importance  to  the  personal  predilections  of 
the  critic.  What  do  we  care  about  Proudhon's  "  ideal " 
when  we  are  studying  Delacroix  ?  For  any  critic  to  say 
that  a  painter  is  irrational  merely  because  he  does  not 
realize  his,  the  critic's,  own  impressions  is  a  monstrons 
impertinence. 

Proudhon  is  severe  on  Ingres  for  his  "  stupid "  work. 
The  truth  is  that  Ingres  is  wholly  unintellectual.  Long 
labor,  and  a  narrow  obstinacy,  have  given  him  unusual 
skill  in  drawing  the  muscles  (which,  nevertheless,  as  in 
the  picture  of  St.  Symphorien  in  the  Cathedral  of  Autun, 
he  often  violently  exaggerates),  but  no  painter  of  great 
fame  is  so  mindless.  I  have  not  seen  his  "  Vierge  a  la 
Communion,"  but  am  fully  disposed  to  believe  all  that 
Proudhon  says  against  it  as  a  pretty  young  girl  posing 
charmingly,  whereas  it  is  evident  that  when  Mary  took  her 
first  sacrament,  it  being  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  she  must 
have  been  at  least  fifty  years  old,  and,  having  borne  great 
sorrow,  could  scarcely  have  retained  that  early  charm  which 
grief  and  time  so  certainly  wear  away.  I  have  not  seen 
this  picture,  but  I  remember  the  Virgin  in  the  same 
painter's  "  Jesus  disputing  with  the  Doctors,"  a  face  with- 
out character  and  without  emotion,  like  the  visage  of  a 
Baker  Street  wax-work ;  and  I  remember  the  central  fig- 
ure, the  boy  Jesus,  a  conception  so  commonplace  that  any 
religious  printseller  will  offer  you  a  hundred  such.  The 
high-water  mark  of  Ingres's  art  was  reached  in  the  Source, 


330  Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art. 

where  all  his  fine  knowledge  of  form  was  called  for,  and 
not  one  ray  of  intelligence. 

There  is  an  elaborate  criticism  of  Leopold  Robert.  His 
pictures  of  Italian  peasants  have  long  been  very  popular 
in  France,  where  they  are  rendered  familiar  by  engrav- 
ings. They  have  a  great  charm,  an  infinite  grace  of  com- 
position and  delicate  sense  of  beauty.  No  artist  ever 
more  admirably  rendered  the  harmony  of  moving  forms. 
His  groups  are  arranged  with  such  consummate  art,  that 
no  limb,  however  joyously  active,  violates  the  profound 
accord.  Hence  we  yield  to  these  works  as  we  yield  to 
beautiful  music ;  they  are  the  music  of  forms  in  motion. 
"We  are  filled  with  a  deep  satisfaction,  and  are  glad  that 
an  order  so  exquisite  should  thus  be  arrested  for  ever. 
For  in  the  actual  world  of  men,  beautiful  groupings  like 
these  are  scarcely  seen  ere  they  shatter,  but  in  the 
works  of  a  painter  like  Leopold  Robert  the  elastic  limbs 
hold  themselves  unweariedly,  and  the  fair  forms  bind  them- 
selves together  in  a  permanent  edifice  of  grace. 

Whether  Italian  peasants  ever  do  arrange  themselves  so 
felicitously,  whether  their  limbs  are  so  delicately  moulded 
and  their  faces  so  ideally  beautiful,  I  cannot  undertake 
to  aifirm.  Proudhon  utterly  disbelieves  these  pictures. 
There  is  not  corn  enough  on  the  cart,  he  says,  for  a  real 
harvest,  nor  any  genuine  rustic  life  in  these  peasants  of  a 
painter's  dreamland.  Very  possibly  Proudhon  is  right. 
Leopold  Robert  may  have  pursued  an  ideal,  which,  so  far 
as  actual  rustic  life  is  concerned,  must  be  pronounced  false 
in  its  superlative  refinement.  Yet  though  his  gift  may 
have  been  injudiciously  employed,  it  was  a  great  gift  and 
a  rare  one,  and  art  can  achieve  no  perfect  work  without  it. 

Proudhon  considers  Horace  Vernet  as  irrational  as  In- 
gres' and  Delacroix.  "  Sottise  et  impuissance,  je  n'ai  pas 
d'autres  termes  pour  caracteriser  de  pareils  ouvrages" 
Such  is  the  verdict  on  Vernet's  works  in  general.  De- 
scending to  particulars,  we  have  a  lively  expression  of  dis- 
like. Speaking  of  that  prodigious  canvas  La  Smala,  our 
critic  uses  the  following  highly  energetic  language : 
"  Otez-moi  cette  peinture :  pour  le  vulgaire  qui  1'admire 


Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art.  331 

elle  est  d'un  detestable  exemple ;  pour  les  honnetes  gens 
qui  savent  a  quel  sentiment  elle  repond,  elle  est  un  sujet 
de  remords.  L'auteur  a  ete  paye,  je  suppose  ;  je  demande 
que  cette  toile  soit  enlevee,  ratisse'e,  degraissee,  puis  ven- 
due  comme  filasse  au  chiffonriier." 

I  agree  with  Proudhon  so  far  as  this,  that  Vernet's 
work  has  no  intellectual  or  moral  value,  and  that  it  is  not 
even  in  any  high  sense  artistic.  Nevertheless,  he  was  a 
great  representative  man,  and,  in  his  own  peculiar  way, 
one  of  the  most  marvellously  endowed  men  who  ever 
lived.  He  painted  French  soldiers  so  exactly  as  French 
soldiers  understand  themselves  that  his  works  are,  as  it 
were,  collective  works ;  it  is  as  if  the  whole  French  army 
had  taken  up  paint-brushes,  and,  suddenly  gifted  with  pic- 
torial skill,  wrought  together  unanimously.  His  pictures 
ought  to  be  preserved  as  a  thoroughly  faithful  record  of 
the  common  French  military  mind  of  this  age.  The 
French  soldier  has  a  peculiar  professional  character,  and, 
when  it  is  not  natural  to  him  as  a  man,  he  rapidly  acquires 
it  by  contact.  Vernet  loved  that  character;  and  as  he 
painted  what  he  loved,  he  did  it  with  a  fidelity  which, 
whatever  critics  may  say,  was  by  no  means  superficial. 
Gay,  brave,  thoughtless,  poor,  cheerful  under  privation, 
happy  with  a  little  luxury  or  honor,  —  merry  and  kind 
habitually,  yet  stern  and  savage  on  occasion,  —  of  almost 
childish  simplicity,  yet  with  a  tiger-like  spring  and  fury  in 
attack,  —  these  little  madder-breeched  heroes  were  be- 
loved by  Vernet  sympathetically.  He  took  the  utmost 
interest  in  them  all,  knew  every  thing  about  their  exist- 
ence, could  remember  every  item  of  their  uniforms  as  a 
mother  remembers  the  little  frocks  of  her  own  children. 
Proudhon  has  a  profound  contempt  for  this  interest  in 
externals,  but  what  is  a  soldier  without  his  uniform 'and 
his  arms  ?  And  Vernet  could  remember  faces  too,  and 
paint  every  soldier  from  memory  whom  he  had  once 
looked  at  attentively.  Proudhon  is  angry  at  Vernet's 
honest  taste  for  military  life  in  its  less  elevating  aspects ; 
but  what  is  more  wearisome  than  perpetual  heroics  ? 

Proudhon  finds  it  convenient  to  admit  the  degradation  of 


332  Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art. 

modern  art  in  order  to  herald  the  great  reform  which  in , 
his  opinion  is  to  renew  and  reinvigorate  it.  This  reform 
is  the  substitution  of  justice  and,  truth  for  aesthetic  quality 
as  the  aim  of  the  artist.  We  are  familiar  with  this  prin- 
ciple already  in  England  in  another  form.  Mr.  Ruskin 
has  often  told  us  that  art  ought  to  place  truth  first,  and 
beauty  second.  Proudhon  goes  a  step  farther,  and  says 
that  in  the  human  mind  there  is  but  a  duality,  or  rather 
polarity,  Conscience  and  Science,  or  in  other  words, 
Justice  and  Truth  ;  the  faculty  which  perceives  beauty 
he  excludes,  or  wholly  subordinates.  Certainly  there  is 
much  great  art  which  is  devoid  of  beauty,  as  for  instance 
Durer's ;  and  there  is  much  small  art  which  has  beauty, 
or  at  least  that  lower  form  of  it  which  we  call  prettiness  : 
yet  the  best  art  is  both  true  and  beautiful.  Proudhon  so 
strongly  detests  the  principle  of  art  for  art,  that  what  he 
•most  undervalues  in  works  of  art  is  precisely  their  artistic 
quality.  Like  many  men  of  narrow  culture  who  have  got 
hold  of  a  great  truth,  he  has  been  dragged  out  of  his  depth 
by  it.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  right  theory  on  this  sub- 
ject has  never  been  precisely  stated  even  by  Ruskin,  and 
still  less  by  Proudhon.  The  relation  of  truth  to  aesthetic 
quality  in  painting  is  one  of  inferior  rank,  but  prior  neces- 
sity. This  complex  sort  of  relation  .occurs  in  many  other 
things.  In  building,  for  instance,  the  work  of  the  mason 
is  of  inferior  rank  to  the  work  of  the  architect,  yet  of  prior 
necessity.  In  literature,  grammatical  accuracy  of  lan- 
guage is  of  inferior  rank  to  the  poetical  gift,  yet  of  prior 
necessity.  In  music,  truth  of  intonation  is  of  inferior  rank 
to  musical  feeling,  yet  of  prior  necessity.  So  that,  in  my 
view,  truth  is  to  be  put  before  beauty  as  the  first  thing  to 
be  asked  for,  yet  not  above  beauty  as  if  it  were  the  higher 
thing.* 

*  Proudhon  never  attempts  to  estimate  the  value  of  thought  and  im- 
agination in  art,  and  they  can  scarcely  be  brought  under  his  duality.  I 
should  say  that,  in  art,  natural  truth  is  lower  than  artistic  invention,  and 
yet  more  necessary ;  whilst  artistic  invention  is  lower  than  thought,  and 
yet,  for  pictorial  purposes,  more  necessary.  In  art,  as  in  life,  necessity 
and  rank  are  often  in  inverse  proportion,  and  what  is  most  necessary  is 
first  asked  for.  Xhe  food  of  the  body  is  the  first  want,  the  food  of  the  mind 
the  second.  The  material  qualities  of  art  are  its  first  necessity ;  the  spir- 
itual come  after. 


Proudhon  as  a  Writer  on  Art.  333 

•  All  these  theories  and  reasonings  of  Proudhon,  of  which 
I  have  endeavored  to  give  an  accurate  account,  are  intro- 
ductory to  the  main  object  of  .his  work,  which  is  the  eleva- 
tion of  Courbet  to  the  rank  of  a  great  rational  artist,  the 
reformer  and  regenerator  of  art.  I  prefer  to  reserve  this 
part  of  the  subject,  and  treat  Courbet  in  some  future  work, 
when  I  shall  have  had  fuller  opportunities  for  studying 
him. 


334  Two  Art  Philosophers. 


XVII. 

TWO  ART   PHILOSOPHERS  * 

/T"SHE  illusions  of  perspective  exist  in  the  intellectual, 
•*•  as  they  do  in  the  material  world.  As  the  true  rela- 
tions of  solar  systems  cannot  be  learned  or  understood 
without  the  help  of  science,  so  the  relations  of  intellectual 
systems  are  not  to  be  comprehended  without  the  aid  of 
philosophy.  And  as,  on  the  one  hand,  it  is  not  necessary 
to  the  forcible  and  effectual  life  of  a  man  of  action  that  he 
should  accurately  conceive  of  the  rank  of  his  own  phmet 
amongst  the  heavenly  bodies,  so,  on  the  other,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  the  success  of  certain  special  forms  of  intel- 
lectual activity  that  the  laborer  should  justly  estimate  the 
importance  of  his  own  little  intellectual  world,  or  precisely 
ascertain  its  place  in  the  universe  of  mind. 

This  is  especially  true  of  artists.  An  artist  is  a  man 
who  by  long  labor  has  trained  himself  to  be  able  to  ex- 
press one  version  of  one  artistic  idea,f  —  his  personal  con- 
ception of  the  idea  dominant  for  the  time  in  his  own 
country.  If  there  is  a  struggle  for  supremacy  between  two 
or  more  artistic  ideas,  the  artist  believes  in  one,  and  gives 
his  life  to  realize  his  private  conception  of  it,  usually  look- 
ing upon  the  others  with  antagonism  or  contempt.  As  a 
matter  of  curiosity,  it  is  always  interesting  to  know  what 
artists  think  of  each  other;  but  their  opinions  about  art 

*  "  Philosophic  de  1' Art."  Par  H.  Taine,  Lemons  Professdes  a  P£cole 
des  Beaux  Arts.  Paris:  Bailliere.  "  Le  Spiritualisme  dans  1' Art."  Par 
Charles  LeVeque,  Professeur  de  Philosophic  au  College  de  France.  Paris : 
Bailliere. 

t  Of  course  I  use  the  words  "artistic  idea"  in  a  special  sense.  I 
should  be  very  sorry  to  seem  to  imply  that  artists  had  not  as  many  ideas 
as  other  people,  in  the  current  acceptation  of  the  word.  What  I  mean  is 
the  vision  of  desired  perfection,  which  for  every  artist  is  necessarily  one. 


Two  Art  Philosophers.  335 

•  are  valuable  only  as  to  special  matters  of  fact,  which  their 
study  of  nature  has  enabled  them  to  ascertain,  or  as  indi- 
cations of  the  existence  of  attractions  and  repulsions  of 
which  even  the  most  acute  thinkers  might  never  suspect 
the  existence.  It  is  of  course  possible  for  an  artist  to  raise 
himself  from  time  to  time  out  of  the  little  plot  of  ground 
which  he  himself  cultivates,  and,  like  a  man  in  the  car  of  a 
balloon  looking  down  on  his  own  garden,  see  its  true  size 
and  position,  and  it  is  also  just  possible  for  an  artist  so 
given  to  intellectual  aerostation  to  return  after  each  ex- 
cursion in  the  upper  regions,  and  cultivate  his  own  acre  in 
humble  and  laborious  contentment,  knowing  well  its  little- 
ness, and  all  the  defects  of  its  situation,  yet  loving  it  enough 
to  be  happy  in  it.  This  may  be  done,  and  in  two  or  three 
instances  it  has  been  done ;  but  its  extreme  rarity  almost, 
though  not  quite,  justifies  the  general  belief  that  there  is 
something  essentially  incompatible  between  the  practical 
and  speculative  intellects.  One  might  more  profitably  listen 
to  a  discourse  about  art  by  such  a  layman  as  Taine,  than  to 
one  by  such  an  artist  as  was  Leopold  Robert.  He  was 
very  justly  famous  as  a  practical  artist,  yet  Gustave 
Planche  said  of  his  written  observations  on  art,  "  His  com- 
mon-place style,  which  I  find  fault  with,  comes  from  the 
common-place  of  his  thoughts  themselves.  What  he  says 
about  the  masters  of  his  art  is  so  obvious  that  to  have  said 
it  there  was  no  necessity  to  be  the  painter  of  the  '  Moisson- 
neurs.'  Any  bourgeois  who  had  walked  about  in  picture 
galleries  would  say  as  much,  and  say  it  as  well.  In  read- 
ing these  letters  of  Robert,  one  remains  convinced  that  the 
practice  of  art,  and  the  understanding  of  the  general  ideas 
which  govern  all  the  forms  of  invention,  are  two  perfectly 
distinct  things.  The  understanding  of  these  ideas  does  not 
lead  to  the  practice  of  painting  or  sculpture,  architecture  or 
music ;  but  it  may  happen  to  eminent  artists,  and  L.  Rob- 
ert's correspondence  is  there  to  prove  it,  to  enunciate  about 
these  arts,  thoughts  so  very  common-place,  so  very  useless, 
so  very  inapplicable,  so  utterly  worn,  so  perfectly  empty, 
that  they  make  the  most  indulgent  reader  smile." 

These  considerations  may  prepare  us  to  understand  the 


336  Two  Art  Philosophers. 

position  of  M.  Taine.  He  is  not  an  artist,  nor  even  an  art 
critic,  but  an  art  philosopher.  This  distinction  between  art 
critics  and  art  philosophers  is,  I  am  aware,  a  new  one,  and 
I  may  be  allowed  the  space  of  a  paragraph  for  its  clearer 
definition. 

An  art  critic,  having  continually  to  judge  of  small  points 
of  practical  success  or  failure  in  the  overcoming  of  partic- 
ular difficulties,  must  necessarily  be  himself  minutely  ac- 
quainted with  the  practical  details  of  art.  Persons  like 
Proudhon,  who  set  up  as  art  critics  without  this  special 
knowledge,  on  the  ground  that  since  they  judge  only  re- 
sults, processes  do  not  concern  them,  are  always  incapable 
of  true  criticism,  because  they  know  nothing  of  the  real 
struggles  and  aims  of  artists,  and  so  may  praise  them  for 
their  simplest  successes,  and  remain  indifferent  to  their 
most  arduous  achievements.  On  the  other  hand  (as  we 
have  just  seen)  the  practical  artist  (who  is  nothing  more) 
may  fail  as  a  critic,  on  account  of  the  very  concentration 
and  limitation  of  his  view.  His  own  object  is  seen  by  him 
in  proportions  so  exaggerated,  that  other  aims,  not  less 
great  and  worthy  in  themselves,  are  hidden  and  dwarfed 
by  it.  Thus  Ingres  says  that  drawing  is  the  whole  of  art, 
and  that  color  may  be  mastered  in  one  week ;  after  which, 
what  is  the  value  of  his  opinion  about  colorists  ?  The  true 
critic  sees  qualities  in  more  accurate  proportions  than  M. 
Ingres ;  nor  could  any  critic  tell  us  that  the  eye  might  be 
educated  to  color  in  eight  days,  without  forfeiting  for  ever 
all  claim  to  be  listened  to.  So  that  on  the  one  hand  the 
critic  is  not  to  be  ignorant  of  technicalities  like  Proudhon, 
nor  absorbed  in  one  technical  aim  like  Ingres  ;  but  he  ought 
to  combine  a  thorough  knowledge  of  practical  matters  with 
a  theoretic  largeness  of  view.  When  this  theoretic  large- 
ness becomes  the  main  characteristic  of  the  writer ;  when 
he  sees  art  habitually  in  vast  systems  and  groupings  occu- 
pying in  their  aggregate  the  whole  field  of  art  history, 
there  is  always  a  probability  that  the  critic  will  lose  him- 
self in  the  philosopher,  and  that  the  utmost  which  he  will 
be  able  to  say  safely  about  any  particular  work  of  art  will 
be  to  fix  its  place  in  the  artistic  development  of  humanity. 


Two  Art  Philosophers.  337 

Yet  philosophy  of  this  broad  kind,  if  it  be  sound,  has  a 
definite  function  and  use.  It  is  the  only  force  capable  of 
repressing  the  narrow  self-assertion  of  artistic  sects.  The 
devotee  of  some  special  idea  is  always  so  possessed  by  the 
idea,  that  he  cannot  see  it  in  its  relation  to  other  ideas. 
What  bigoted  "  classic  "  or  ardent  "  romantic  "  ever  sanely- 
appreciated  the  services  of  both  classicism  and  romanti- 
cism ?  To  go  to  partisans  in  art  for  sound  views  of  the 
whole  subject  is  like  going  to  a  Red  Republican,  or  a  be- 
liever in  the  divine  right  of  kings,  for  a  rational  political 
philosophy.  For  as  the  wise  politician  is  a  supporter  of 
constitutional  monarchy  in  England,  a  friend  of  imperial- 
ism in  Russia,  and  of  republicanism  in  Switzerland,  because 
of  these  three  forms  of  government  each  is  the  best  in  its 
own  time  and  place,  so  an  intelligent  student  of  art  may 
dispassionately  approve  of  its  various  developments,  and 
thank  God  that  he  has  been  born  late  enough  to  study  at 
once  the  severe  ideality  of  the  Greek,  the  grotesque  im- 
agination of  the  Goth,  the  science  and  taste  of  the  Renais- 
sance artists,  and  the  earnest  naturalism  of  the  moderns. 

And  now  at  last  this  wider  philosophy  has  found  an 
official  advocate.  In  the,  very  centre  and  head-quarters  of 
academic  tradition,  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts,  a  professor 
has  told  the  students,  what  no  painter  would  be  likely  to 
tell  them,  that  art  is  a  natural  product  of  humanity,  as 
vegetation  is  a  product  of  the  soil ;  and  that  its  varieties 
are  the  inevitable  result  of  the  changing  states  and  circum- 
stances of  mankind,  just  as  one  place  and  climate  has  one 
flora  and  another  another.  Nor  does  he  hesitate  to  give 
expression  to  the  inference  that  the  only  duty  of  each 
country  and  generation  is  to  produce  freely  its  own  flowers. 
How  wide  the  interval  from  the  old  academic  tradition  to 
this  tolerant  and  liberal  doctrine  !  How  pleasant  to  hear 
that  what  is  best  for  us  to  do  is  that  which  is  most  our 
own,  and  to  be  released  for  ever  from  all  obligation  to  re- 
produce an  art  which  was  the  expression  of  a  life  we  have 
not  lived !  We,  who  have  been  preached  to  about  the  duty 
of  imitating  the  Greeks  till  some  of  us  had  come  to  that 
22 


338  Two  Art  Philosophers. 

point  of  weariness  that  we  hated  the  very  name  of  Hellas, 
may  congratulate  ourselves  that  an  authorized  teacher  has 
advanced  a  theory  by  which  it  may  be  permitted  to  us  to 
love  Greek  art  heartily,  and  yet  not  waste  our  whole  lives 
in  the  vain  endeavor  to  make  our  own  work  a  repetition 
of  it. 

M.  Taine's  theory  is  not  very  profound  because  it  is  so 
obviously  true,  but  the  truisms  of  thinkers  are  very  daring 
speculations  in  the  temples  of  tradition;  and  M.  Taine 
deserves  honor,  not  so  much  for  what  he  has  thought,  as 
for  having  ventured  to  give  utterance  to  his  thought  in  a 
place  where  its  distinct  expression  marked  a  new  era  in 
official  art  teaching.  Even  if  M.  Taine  were  to  be  suc- 
ceeded by  some  retrograde  professor,  the  students  who 
heard  him  are  not  likely  to  forget  his  lesson,  and  the  con- 
clusions to  which  it  leads.  If  it  is  true,  as  this  new  teacher 
says,  that  the  artist  is  the  product  of  his  time,  it  is  evident 
(they  will  infer)  that  no  modern  artist  can  by  effort  be- 
come like  the  product  of  another  time.  If  we  are  orange- 
trees,  we  shall  produce  oranges ;  if  fig-trees,  we  may 
blamelessly  produce  figs.  If  we  are  in  too  chilly  a  climate, 
our  fruit  will  never  ripen,  so  (as  artists)  we  shall  be  un- 
productive ;  and  the  climate,  for  every  artist,  is  the  collec- 
tive life  and  intellect  of  his  own  time.  Those  who  produce 
in  it  are  not  necessarily  the  best,  but  those  whom  the 
climate  best  suits.  The  average  amount  of  natural  artistic 
endowment  is  much  the  same  in  all  ages ;  but  one  epoch 
favors  the  best,  and  another  that  which  is  not  quite  the 
best,  and  so  downwards  till  some  epochs  favor  no  art  at  all. 
This  seems  to  be  M.  Taine's  view;  but  here  it  may  be 
objected  that  the  permanent  characteristics  of  races,  as  well 
as  the  temporary  characteristics  of  epochs,  may  have  much 
to  do  with  the  matter ;  and  that  the  average  percentage 
of  natural  art  intellects  in  the  French  race  is  possibly 
greater  than  amongst  the  Tartars  or  Esquimaux.  This 
consideration,  however,  in  no  wise  diminishes  the  natural 
effect  of  M.  Taine's  view  of  art  on  practical  work  and  on 
criticism.  If  he  is  in  the  main  right  as  I  believe  him  to 
be,  it  is  useless  for  us,  as  artists  to  try  to  do  work  of  any 


Two  Art  Philosophers.  339 

kind  whatever  but  our  own  ;  and  it  is  childish  in  us,  as 
critics,  to  find  fault  with  schools  of  art  because  they  differ 
from  our  own  ideal  and  from  each  other.  Our  business, 
as  art  philosophers,  is  not  to  find  fault,  but  to  note  charac- 
teristics ;  and  it  is  as  idle  in  us  to  set  up  some  kind  of  art 
as  perfection,  blaming  all  other  in  proportion  as  it  deviates 
from  that  standard,  as  it  would  be  in  a  botanist  to  set  up 
the  vine  leaf  as  the  correct  thing  in  leaf  beauty,  and  con- 
demn the  willow  as  heretical  for  its  obstinate  non-conform- 
ity to  his  pet  pattern. 

M.  Taine  thus  defines  his  art  philosophy  :  — 

"  Ours  is  modern,  and  differs  from  the  old  in  being  historic,  and 
not  dogmatic  ;  that  is  to  say  it  does  not  impose  precepts,  but  ascer- 
tains and  proclaims  *  laws.  The  old  aesthetics  gave  first  a  definition 
of  the  beautiful,  and  said,  for  example,  that  the  beautiful  is  the  ex- 
pression of  the  moral  ideal,  or  else  that  it  is  the  expression  of  the 
invisible,  or,  again,  that  it  is  the  expression  of  human  passions ; 
then  starting  thence  as  from  a  legal  decision,  absolved,  condemned, 
admonished,  and  guided.  I  am  very  happy  not  to  have  so  heavy 
a  task  to  perform ;  I  have  not  to  guide  you  —  I  should  be  too 
much  embarrassed.  My  only  duty  is  to  exhibit  facts,  and  to  show 
you  how  these  facts  were  produced.  The  modern  method,  which 
I  endeavor  to  follow,  and  which  is  beginning  to  introduce  itself 
into  all  the  modern  sciences,  consists  in  regarding  human  labors, 
and  in  particular,  works  of  art,  as  facts  and  products  whose  charac- 
teristics are  to  be  noted  and  whose  causes  are  to  be  investigated  — 
no  more.  So  understood,  Science  neither  proscribes  nor  pardons  ; 
she  states  and  explains.  She  does  not  say  to  you,  '  Despise  Dutch 
art,  it  is  too  coarse,  and  enjoy  none  but  Italian.'  Neither  does  she 
say  to  you,  '  Despise  Gothic  art ;  it  lacks  health ;  enjoy  none  but 
the  Greek.'  She  leaves  to  every  one  the  liberty  to  follow  his 
private  preferences,  to  love  best  that  which  is  in  conformity  with 
his  own  temperament,  and  to  study,  with  a  more  attentive  care, 
that  which  best  corresponds  to  the  development  of  his  own  mind. 
As  for  Science  herself,  she  has  sympathy  fur  all  forms  of  art  and 
for  all  schools,  even  for  those  which  seem  most  opposed ;  she 
accepts  them  as  so  many  manifestations  of  the  human  mind ;  she 
considers  that  the  more  numerous  and  contrary  they  are,  the  more 
they  show  the  mind  of  humanity  under  new  and  numerous  aspects ; 
she  acts  like  Botany,  which  studies  with  equal  interest,  now  the 
orange-tree  and  the  laurel,  now  the  fir  and  the  birch ;  she  is  herself 
a  sort  of  Botany,  applied  not  to  plants,  but  to  the  labors  of  men. 

*  I  use  these  two  words  to  get  the  double  force  of  constater  employed 
in  the  original. 


BKSIIYJ 

: 


340  Two  Art  Philosophers. 

In  this  character  she  follows  the  general  movement  which  draws 
together  in  our  day  the  moral  and  the  natural  sciences,  and  which, 
giving  to  the  former  the  principles,  the  precautions,  the  directions 
of  the  latter,  communicates  to  them  the  same  solidity,  and  assures 
to  them  the  same  progress." 

As  a  matter  of  purely  literary  criticism,  it  may  be  added 
that  M.  Taine  is  in  possession  of  an  unusually  clear  and 
cultivated  style,  rising  occasionally  even  to  eloquence,  —  a 
great  advantage  to  any  writer,  but  positively  indispensable 
to  one  who  constitutes  himself  the  advocate  of  views  not 
yet  generally  received.  There  are  several  brilliant  pages 
which  I  should  have  been  glad  to  quote  in  the  original,  but 
have  not  space.  The  best  of  these  are,  perhaps,  the 
sketches  of  Greek  civilization  and  Gothic  architecture. 

If  M.  Taine  is  a  historical  positivist  in  art,  —  that  is,  a 
philosopher  who  considers  all  the  varieties  of  art  as  equally 
subjects  for  investigation  from  the  scientific  stand-point, 
whether  we  regard  them  as  representations  of  nature  or  as 
manifestations  of  mind,  —  M.  Leveque  is  a  being  of  another 
order,  a  passionate  spiritualist,  with  a  capacity  for  quite 
religious  fervor  in  behalf  of  the  doctrines  in  which,  as  he 
believes,  are  bound  up  the  fate  of  the  Fine  Arts  and  the 
moral  health  of  all  humanity. 

Spiritualism,  as  M.  Leveque  uses  the  word,  means  the 
habitual  reference  to  the  ideal ;  materialism,  the  forgetful- 
ness  of  ideal  excellence  in  the  absorbing  study  of  material 
things.  The  great  difficulty  of  spiritualism  is  to  distinguish 
between  noble  ideals  and  those  baser  creations  of  the  im- 
aginative faculty,  which,  so  far  from  being  higher  than 
material  nature,  fall  short  of  it  or  degrade  it.  It  is  the 
business  of  philosophy,  says  M.  Leveque,  to  establish  this 
distinction. 

"No  one  now  doubts  the  power  of  those  concealed  movers  which 
at  one  time  push  societies  onward,  and  at  another  pull  them  violently 
back,  and  which  are  called  ideas.  It  has  been  given  to  society  to 
choose  between  the  good  and  the  bad  movers.  The  bad  are  the 
ideas  in  which  error  predominates  ;  the  good,  those  where  predom- 
inates truth.  To  recognize,  unravel,  clear  up,  fortify,  develop, 
the  true  element ;  to  distinguish,  lay  bare,  point  out,  weaken  the 
false  element  in  ideas  —  such  is  the  office  of  philosophy;  and  the 


Two  Art  Philosophers.  341 

older  a  society  is,  the  more  men's  minds  in  it  are  ripe  and  disposed 
for  criticism  and  discussion,  the  more  imperious  does  this  duty  of 
philosophy  become." 

» 

M.  Leveque  goes  on  to  argue  that  philosophy  divides 
itself  naturally  into  specialities,  and  that  there  are  as  many 
philosophies  as  there  are  sciences.  Thus  there  is  a  philos- 
ophy of  history,  a  philosophy  of  medicine,  a  philosophy  of 
political  economy ;  and  all  these  terms  take  their  place  in 
modern  language  as  the  ideas  which  they  express  become 
clearer  and  more  definite.  It  follows  that  philosophy  is 
under  the  necessity  of  continual  expansion  and  subdivision 
to  correspond  with  the  extent  of  modern  acquisition  and  its 
minute  ramification  in  specialities.  There  is  a  philosophy 
of  the  beautiful,  just  as  there  is  a  philosophy  of  the  true. 

When  we  get  hold  of  a  book  like  this,  with  a  subject  so 
peculiarly  tempting  to  the  dealer  in  vague  and  pompous 
generalities,  our  best  course  is,  first,  to  read  it  through 
with  patient  attention,  and  then  try  to  find  out  what  new 
deposit  the  book  has  left  in  us.  The  great  difficulty  of  the 
spiriftialist  philosophy  has  always  been  that,  although  it 
rightly  insisted  on  the  necessity  for  an  idea,  it  was  embar- 
rassed when  we  inquired  of  it  some  direction  and  guidance 
in  our  own  search  after  the  ideal.  Hence  spiritualism,  in 
its  practical  issues,  is  rather  a  retrospective  than  an  en- 
couraging philosophy ;  it  names  certain  artists  of  the  past 
as  its  saints  and  heroes,  but  has  a  tendency  to  restrain 
present  productiveness  within  the  limits  of  traditionary 
repetition.  What  it  most  dreads  is  materialism,  or  the 
objective  study  of  matter  ;  therefore  it  has  to  insist  on  an 
intellectual  ideal ;  and  as  it  is  of  no  use  to  talk  about  such 
ideals  as  are  not  yet  embodied,  nor  (so  far  as  we  can  know) 
even  conceived,  spiritualism  is  always  compelled  to  recur 
to  ideals  which  have  already  been  made  visible  to  us  in 
.marble  or  on  canvas,  its  favorite  examples  being  Greek 
sculpture  and  the  designs  of  Raphael,  to  which  a  French- 
man is  likely  to  add  the  paintings  of  Nicolas  Poussin.  By 
dint  of  incessant  repetition  of  this  reference,  spiritualism 
has  educated  whole  generations  of  artists  in  the  belief  that 
by  looking  at  these  works,  and  copying  them,  and  imitating 


342  Two  Art  Philosophers. 

them,  they  might  themselves  reach  this  wonderful  and 
mysterious  goal,  the  ideal  which  so  fascinated  from  afar  the 
eyes  of  the  d«rout  philosophers.  Those  who,  in  their  own 
way,  sought  new  ideals  in  nature,  were  condemned  as 
materialists,  or  mere  copiers  of  matter.  The  misfortune  of 
the  spiritualists,  as  the  directors  of  practical  effort,  was,  that 
they  were  always  living  up  in  the  clouds,  and  talking  about 
qualities  as  severed  from  things,  seeking  the  good,  the 
beautiful,  the  true,  conceived  as  metaphysical  notions, 
which  was  a  hopeless  search  for  visible  adjectives.  You 
might  just  as  profitably  set  out  in  search  of  speed  as  an 
entity. 

To  escape  this  imputation  of  cloudiness,  M.  Leveque 
tells  us  that  the  spiritualist  philosophy  is  now  observant, 
and  has  travelled  over  land  and  sea,  which  turns  out  to 
mean  that  M.  Cousin  undertook  a  voyage  across  the  Chan- 
nel to  study  the  Poussins  in  England.  It  was  a  pity  to 
lower  the  sublime  generality  of  the  phrase  by  this  adduced 
proof.  Spiritualism  voyaging  over  land  and  sea  was  rather 
a  grand  and  imposing  idea.  M.  Cousin  taking  a  through 
ticket  to  London  by  Calais,  or,  if  economically  disposed,  by 
Boulogne,  or,  if  parsimoniously,  by  Dieppe,  makes  some- 
how a  weaker  impression  on  the  imagination,  and  carries 
one  to  prosaic  associations  of  little  rolling  steamboats,  and 
that  terrible  temporary  ailment  which  subjugates  so  many 
voyagers,  spiritualist  or  materialist.  Still  M.  Cousin  de- 
serves hearty  praise  for  having  been  willing  to  use  his 
corporeal  eyes  instead  of  evolving  art  criticism  out  of  his 
moral  consciousness.  There  are  two  duties  of  the  writer 
on  art,  —  to  look  and  to  think  ;  but  philosophers  are  too 
apt  to  consider  the  first  a  work  of  supererogation,  whilst 
they  perform  the  second  with  infinite  patience  and  dili- 
gence. 

Our  difficulty  with  Spiritualism  is  to  get  at  the  meaning 
of  its  great  abstraction  —  "  the  Beautiful."  M.  Leveque 
fixes  this  for  us  in  a  theistic  conception.  Pantheism  could 
not  conceive  of  it,  but  Theism  can,  because  Theism  has 
conceived  God,  who  is  the  Beautiful,  and  whom,  without 
understanding,  we  conceive.  "  We  have  then,  in  the  in- 


Two  Art  Philosophers.  343 

nermost  depths  of  our  reason,  an  absolute  type  of  grandeur, 
not  of  physical  grandeur,  but  of  intellectual  and  moral 
grandeur,  that  is  to  say,  of  perfection.  Since  the  Infinite 
Beauty  is  conceived,  a  measure  is  given  us  for  imperfect 
and  finite  beauties." 

Reasoning  of  this  sort  is  convenient  sometimes  with 
children,  because  it  overawes  them,  and  prevents  them 
from  asking  questions,  but  it  is  unsatisfactory  to  men  who 
are  out  of  the  childish  stage  of  intellectual  development. 
"  The  Infinite  Beauty  is  conceived ; "  Humanity  has  con- 
ceived Divinity,  and  so  has  a  fixed  standard  by  which  to 
measure  finite  perfections.  Could  any  thing  be  more  vari- 
ous, more  fluctuating,  more  emphatically  wwfixed  than 
men's  conceptions  of  the  Supreme  Being  ?  Our  concep- 
tion of  Him  varies  from  year  to  year  with  our  varying 
knowledge  and  intellectual  force.  This  is  quite  inevitable  ; 
it  would  be  inevitable  still  if  he  lived  familiarly  amongst 
us  as  an  earthly  sovereign.  We  could  never  form  a  true 
conception  of  Him  so  long  as  we  remained  inferior  to 
Himself.  Before  fancying  that  we  can  conceive  of  God  it 
would  be  well  to  reflect  whether  we  can  even  conceive  of 
mere  human  intellect  in  its  highest  examples.  The  supe- 
rior may  be  admired,  or  even  adored  by  the  inferior,  but 
he  cannot  be  conceived  by  him.  The  English  conception 
of  God  is  not  the  French  conception ;  it  is  certainly  not 
the  Scotch  ;  and  if  we  may  judge  by  the  pious  allusions  of 
transatlantic  politicians,  it  is  most  assuredly  not  the  Amer- 
ican. Nor  does  the  highest  contemporary  English  concep- 
tion very  closely  resemble  that  held  by  minds  of  the  same 
relative  rank  in  the  same  country  thirty  years  ago.  Set- 
ting aside  atheists  and  young  children  it  is  likely  that  there 
exist  in  England  just  now  at  least  fifteen  million  different 
conceptions  of  the  English  conception  of  the  Deity.  How 
then  are  we  to  refer  to  the  Idea  of  Deity  as  a  fixed  visible 
standard  of  Beauty  ?  And  even  if  we  could  suppose  this 
possible  as  to  intellectual  and  moral  perfection,  how  are 
we  to  apply  this  standard  to  physical  perfection  ?  How 
reason  from  the  Beauty  of  Goodness  to  the  beauty  of  a 
statue  or  a  picture?  'It  is  this  awkward  necessity  for 


344  Two  Art  Philosophers. 

shifting  the  argument  from  morals  to  matter,  that  demon- 
strates the  weakness  of  dogmatic  spiritualism.*  These 
philosophers  first  tell  us  that  they  have  hit  upon  the  im- 
mutable, eternal  Beauty,  which  is  moral  Beauty  ;  and  then 
they  come  with  that  to  a  piece  of  carved  marble,  or  painted 
canvas,  and  try  to  apply  their  immutable  standard.  It 
would  be  as  reasonable  to  devise  a  converse  criticism,  and 
try  to  measure  the  accuracy  of  history  with  a  two-foot 
rule. 

The  spiritualist  would  find  no  words  severe  enough  to 
express  his  contempt  for  a  philosophy  of  art  which  pro- 
fessed to  have  no  fixed  standard  of  beauty,  and  I  dare  say 
that  if  I  were  to  develop  my  own  theory  of  aesthetics  I 
should  be  called  by  hard  names.  What  I  say  is,  that  spir- 
itualism does  not  erect  fixed  standards  at  all;  it  only 
erects  words,  the  signification  of  which  fluctuates  every 
day.  It  is  amazing  how  easily  men  are  governed  and  im- 
posed upon  by  words,  and  the  less  they  understand  them 
the  more  readily  they  submit  to  them.  To  say,  "  the 
Beautiful  is  the  standard  of  beauty"  is  a  childish  play 
upon  words,  because  the  beautiful  is  an  abstraction  having 
no  visible  existence. 

At  this  point  a  spiritualist  would  probably  accuse  me  of 
denying  the  existence  of  beauty  altogether.  Well,  except 
as  an  adjective,  an  attribute,  I  do.  It  is  a  quality,  not  a 
being.  Just  so  I  would  deny  the  separate  existence  of 
cleanliness  or  holiness.  There  are  clean  people  and  holy 
people,  and  clean  places  and  holy  places  ;  but  you  cannot 
detach  the  adjective,  and  set  it  up  as  an  immutable  stand- 
ard of  cleanliness  or  holiness.  Of  course  we  need  some 
kind  of  standard,  and  we  derive  it  from  some  visible  ex- 
ample ;  but  if  a  higher  example  were  shown  us,  we  should 
quit  our  old  standard,  and  take  to  the  new  one.  For  in- 
stance :  our  farmers  have  lately  been  told  to  be  clean,  in 

*  Imagine,  for  example,  the  absurdity  of  meditating  upon  the  beauty 
of  sacrifice  in  order  to  be  able  to  judge  of  the  comparative  beauty  of  silks. 
The  jurors  at  the  International  Exhibition  would  have  failed  to  perceive 
the  connection  between  the  two,  and  the  manufacturers  at  Lyons  are 
probably  not  aware  of  it. 


Two  Art  Philosophers.  345 

order  to  diminish  the  ravages  of  the  cattle  plague  ;  but  as 
the  word  "  cleanliness  "  would  to  them  only  signify  Eng- 
lish cleanliness,  a  higher  example  was  appealed  to  ;  not  an 
abstraction,  "  the  clean,"  as  these  philosophers  say  "  the 
beautiful,"  but  "  Dutch  cleanliness,"  as  an  art  critic  might 
counsel  our  artists  to  aim  at  a  Dutch  carefulness  in  exe- 
cution. 

I  have  no  space  to  criticise  M.  Leveque's  work  in  de- 
tail, though  I  have  read  it  with  care.  The  central  idea  of 
it  is  that  which  I  have  just  set  before  the  reader.  Though 
this  central  idea  is  certainly  an  illusion,  spiritualism  has 
rendered  us  the  service  of  insisting  upon  the  necessity  for 
ideality  in  art.  If  there  is  no  immutable  standard  of  "  the 
beautiful,"  there  may  still  be  an  endless  endeavor  after 
that  beauty  which  for  each  of  us  seems  the  best.  M. 
Leveque  is  especially  right  in  desiring  that  artists  should 
be  penetrated  with  the  faith  that  their  art  ought  to  have 
lofty  intellectual,  or  psychological  aims,  and  that  it  can 
only  have  enduring  value  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  product  of 
mind.  With  all  my  heart  I  agree  with  M.  Leveque  in  as- 
signing to  those  forms  of  art  which  are  the  mere  copyism 
of  matter  a  much  lower  rank  than  is  due  to  the  art  which 
conveys  great  messages  from  the  soul  of  the  artist  to 
humanity.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  as  to  what  partic- 
ular art  fell  under  each  category  there  might  be  some 
difference  of  opinion  between  us. 


346    Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation. 


XVIII. 

FURNITURE  :  AN  AFTER-DINNER  CONVERSATION. 

DRAMATIS   PERSON2E. 

THE  HOST,  Mr.  PLTTMPTON,  a  rich  country  gentleman. 
Mr.  MANTLEY,  the  clergyman  of  the  parish. 
Mr.  BURLEY,  a  London  merchant. 
AN  ARTIST. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  My  new  house  in  London  is  just  fin- 
ished, and  I  am  going  to  furnish  it.  I  am  in  much  per- 
plexity about  it.  I  should  be  happy  to  leave  it  all  to  my 
wife,  but  she  is  as  much  puzzled  as  myself.  What  am  I 
to  do? 

Mr.  Burley.  You  country  gentlemen  make  difficulties 
out  of  every  thing.  It  is  the  simplest  thing  in  the  world  to 
furnish  a  house,  when  you've  money  enough.  I  furnished 
mine  in  a  week,  and  very  cheaply  too.  I  said  to  myself, 
"  If  I  give  up  my  own  time  to  it  for  a  day  or  two  I  shall 
save  as  much  as  will  pay  me  about  a  hundred  pounds  a 
day  for  my  trouble  ;  so  it's  worth  my  while."  I  took  a 
quantity  of  notes  and  sovereigns  and  went  about  to  a  good 
many  upholsterers  and  furniture  dealers  that  I  knew  were 
in  difficulties,  offering  generally  about  half  as  much  as  they 
asked  for  the  things,  but  always  in  ready  money.  By  this 
means  I  furnished  my  house  very  handsomely  indeed  for 
about  fifteen  hundred  pounds.  The  furniture  would  fetch 
two  thousand  by  auction. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  You  managed  very  cleverly  ;  but  my 
great  difficulty  is  the  question  of  taste.  The  old  house  here 
is  provided  with  an  immense  quantity  of  miscellaneous  fur- 
niture, and  somehow  does  not  look  so  bad  after  all,  though 
the_things,  judged  severely,  are,  no  doubt,  incongruous. 


Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation.    347 

But  my  superfluous  things  here  would  not  do  in  the  new 
London  house,  which  I  must  furnish  newly,  because  it  is 
a  new  building.  It  is  a  most  embarrassing  question. 

The  Artist.     It  is  a  most  splendid  opportunity. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  Perhaps  so,  if  one  knew  how  to  seize  it. 
An  opportunity,  I  suppose  you  mean,  for  the  exercise  of 
good  taste.  But  I  have  no  confidence  in  my  own  judgment 
in  these  matters.  I  have  sense  enough  to  be  aware  that  my 
aesthetic  faculty  is  exceedingly  small. 

Mr.  Barley.  My  way  of  buying  would  not  suit  you, 
because  you  want  the  things  all  to  be  in  the  fashion,  I  sup- 
pose. But,  as  for  taste,  you  can  buy  that  for  money  like 
every  thing  else.  Go  to  a  good  upholsterer  —  a  respectable 
man,  mind.  It  is  his  trade  to  understand  the  rules  of  taste, 
and  he  will  give  you  the  benefit  of  his  knowledge,  only  he 
will  make  you  pay  handsomely  for  it. 

Mr.  Mantley.  That  would  scarcely  be  safe.  A  man 
may  be  a  respectable  tradesman,  and  still  have  vulgar 
tastes.  Upholsterers  usually  provide  things  to  suit  the 
majority,  but  you  would  scarcely  furnish  in  a  manner 
creditable  to  your  taste  by  so  easy  a  process  as  putting  the 
whole  matter  into  the  hands  of  an  upholsterer. 

The  Artist.     Hear,  hear  ! 

Mr.  Plumpton.  I  quite  believe  you  ;  and  that  is  exactly 
the  cause  of  my  peculiar  anxiety  at  this  moment.  Of  course 
if  I  thought  that  an  upholsterer  could  help  me  out  of  it  I 
should  have  no  trouble.  I  am  very  unfortunately  situated. 
I  have  got  a  smattering  of  art  culture,  as  it  is  called,  which 
prevents  me  from  resting  satisfied  with  vulgar  ostentation  ; 
and  yet  I  feel  that  my  knowledge  is  very  imperfect,  and  my 
private  judgment  not,  as  yet,  to  be  relied  upon.  My  father 
would  have  had  no  such  anxiety.  He  lived  in  an  unoss- 
thetic  age,  and  would  have  furnished  like  everybody  else, 
and  felt  sure  it  was  all  right  provided  only  the  things 
were  made  of  mahogany.  My  son  will,  probably, 
understand  the  fine  arts  better  than  I  do  ;  and,  perhaps, 
even  enjoy  such  an  occasion  as  this  as  an  opportunity  for 
the  exercise  of  his  taste.  But  I,  who  stand  between  dark- 
ness and  light,  do  not  see  my  way  very  clearly. 


348    Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation. 

The  Artist.  So  far  as  I  understand  you,  then,  you  wish 
your  town  house  to  be  in  some  degree  artistic. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  I  should  like  it  to  be  in  perfect  taste 
throughout.  I  do  not  care  about  ostentation,  but  I  must 
have  every  thing  right  and  good  ;  and,  as  you  say,  in  some 
degree  artistic. 

Mr.  Burley.  Your  house  will  be  very  exceptional,  for 
very  few  houses  are  artistic,  especially  in  town  I  don't 
care  about  art ;  I  like  comfort.  I  never  could  sit  down  on 
an  artistically  carved  chair.  Mind  you  have  your  house 
comfortable,  and  never  mind  what  our  friend  the  artist  tells 
you.  Have  good  easy  chairs  —  that's  the  sort  of  thing  — 
and  good  bedding.  I'm  not  particular  to  color  ;  and  carv- 
ing is  a  bother  ;  besides,  as  servants  say,  it  takes  twice  as 
much  cleaning  as  smooth  furniture  ;  and,  therefore,  it  costs 
a  good  deal,  annually,  in  wages.  But  comfort,  in  our  age, 
is  necessary.  A  comfortable  chair  relieves  anxiety.  A 
chair  should  support  all  the  frame  without  calling  any 
muscle  into  action.  As  for  wood,  have  smooth  mahogany  ; 
that's  the  best. 

Mr.  Mantley.  Furniture,  with  you,  seems  to  be  purely 
a  physical  question.  I  think  you  are  quite  right  in  requir- 
ing it  to  be  comfortable  ;  but  might  it  not  also  be  in  some 
way  expressive  of  intellectual  feelings,  and  even  capable  of 
affording  them  gratification  ? 

The  Artist.  A  house  ought  to  be  a  work  of  art,  just  like 
a  picture.  Every  bit  of  furniture  in  it  should  be  a  particle 
of  a  great  composition  chosen  with  reference  to  every  other 
particle.  A  grain  of  color,  a  hundredth  of  an  inch  across, 
is  of  the  utmost  importance  in  a  picture ;  and  a  little  orna- 
ment on  a  chimney-piece  is  of  the  utmost  artistic  importance 
in  a  house. 

Mr.  Burley.  You  are  going  quite  beyond  my  depth  now. 
My  view  of  furniture  is,  that  it  ought  to  have  a  respectable, 
hospitable  appearance,and  to  do  justice  at  once  to  the  wealth 
and  good  feeling  of  its  owner.  I  like  a  fine  sideboard,  covered 
with  costly  plate,  because  it  looks  substantial ;  and  I  like  a 
good  dining-table,  surrounded  with  comfortable  chairs,  be- 
cause it  looks  hospitable.  I  go  little  farther  than  that.  It  is 


Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation.     349 

right,  no  doubt,  for  ladies  to  have  elegance  in  their  drawing- 
rooms,  but  that  is  beyond  my  province.  A  man's  study  or 
place  of  business  should  always  be  orderly  and  well- 
arranged,  but  it  need  not  be  elegant.  Men,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  ought  to  express,  in  their  furniture,  the  three  virtues  of 
wealth,  order,  and  hospitality.  I  would  have  no  poor 
material  of  any  kind  —  every  thing  quite  substantial,  and 
rich,  and  good.  And  mind  to  have  plenty  of  drawers  and 
cabinets  ;  they  are  the  whole  machinery  of  order. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  I  should  like  to  unite  your  different 
requirements.  One  of  you  wants  art ;  another  intellect, 
perhaps  erudition  ;  and  another  comfort,  and  that  most 
desirable  virtue,  order.  These  things  are  not  necessarily 
incompatible,  though  seldom  seen  in  combination.  My 
ambition  shall  be  to  combine  them. 

Mr.  Mantley.  Furniture  is  very  expressive  of  moral 
qualities,  and  I  think  you  never  know  a  man  accurately 
until  you  have  seen  the  inside  of  his  house.  However  you 
furnish  yours,  it  will  in  the  end  only  be  an  expression  of 
yourself,  or  of  those  sentiments  and  ideas  which  may  hap- 
pen to  be  predominant  when  you  furnish. 

Mr.  Burley.  A  pretty  theory,  but  not,  I  think,  applicable 
in  the  majority  of  cases.  Most  people's  furniture  expresses 
nothing  whatever.  It  is  simply  ordered  from  the  uphol- 
sterer, and  there  is  an  end  of  it.  Still,  of  course,  some 
people  express  themselves  in  their  furniture  —  those,  at 
least,  who  pay  any  attention  to  it. 

Mr.  Mantley.  I  am  sure  everybody  who  furnishes 
expresses  himself  one  way  or  other.  The  mere  fact  of 
his  leaving  it  to  an  upholsterer  expresses  a  great  deal,  for 
it  proves  that  the  buyer  has  no  taste  of  his  own,  and, 
therefore,  at  once  excludes  him  from  the  aesthetic  class. 

The  Artist.  All  who  care  about  art  pay  great  attention 
to  furniture.  A  friend  of  mine,  who  really  understands 
painting,  is  so  exquisitely  alive  to  harmony  of  color  that  I 
have  seen  him  exclude  a  penholder  from  a  large  room 
because  its  color  was  discordant.  To  an  eye  so  delicate  as 
his  every  particle  of  color  is  of  consequence,  and  therefore, 


350    Furniture:  An  After-Dinner  Conversation. 

of  course,  he  could  never  leave  any  thing  to  an  upholsterer 
—  not  even  the  minutest  detail. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  I  should  feel  obliged  to  you,  Mr.  Mant- 
ley,  if  you  would  develop  your  theory  a  little.  Your  idea 
that  all  men  express  themselves  in  furniture  seems  worth 
dwelling  upon. 

Mr.  Mantley.  The  habits  and  feelings  of  whole  classes 
imprint  themselves  on  their  furniture.  The  English  aris- 
tocracy, for  example,  has  certain  ways  of  its  own  which 
other  classes  do  not  imitate  successfully.  A  gentleman's 
house  is  always,  evidently,  a  gentleman's  house,  though  the 
owner  may  be  quite  poor.  I  do  not  say  that  it  is  always  in 
good  taste,  for  our  gentry  do  not  always  distinguish  them- 
selves in  the  artistic  department  of  furnishing  ;  but  still  the 
objects,  however  ugly,  and  even  shabby,  all  bear  witness 
together  that  their  owner  is  a  gentleman.  And  a  rich 
tradesman  has  another  standard  to  which  all  his  furnishing 
tends,  so  that  you  may  know  him  at  once  by  it.  One  dif- 
ference is  that  a  gentleman  safely  leaves  many  things  with 
a  frank  aspect  of  age  and  wear  on  them  —  a  habit  brought 
on  by  living  in  old  houses  and  constantly  using  old  things  ; 
whereas  every  thing  in  a  thriving  tradesman's  house  is  either 
quite  new  or  at  least  in  perfect  repair.  Another  difference 
is  that  a  gentleman's  furnishing,  though  it  be  shabby  and 
disorderly,  is  pretty  sure  to  have  some  poetry  about  it  — 
something  of  antiquity  or  culture,  some  tint  of  history, 
either  belonging  to  his  own  family  or  the  state  ;  whereas  a 
rich  tradesman's  house  is  generally  comfortable,  but  very 
prosaic.  But  it  is  easier  to  feel  these  differences  than  to 
describe  them. 

Mr.  Burley.  You  are  right  so  far.  For  example,  here 
is  this  old  dining-room  with  hints  of  history  enough  to 
occupy  an  antiquary  for  hours  ;  whereas  in  my  dining- 
room,  I,  being  a  tradesman,  have  only  the  creature  com- 
forts of  good  chairs  and  tables  and  an  uncommonly 
handsome  carpet. 

Mr.  Mantley.  I  think  it  is  there  where  you  rich  trades- 
men are  so  expressive.  Even  in  leaving  the  matter  to  the 
upholsterer  you  betray  a  strong  love  of  the  prosaic  side  of 


Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation.    351 

wealth.  Your  furniture  generally  expresses  a  high  degree 
of  satisfaction  in  the  possession  of  money,  combined  with 
some  indifference  to  poetry. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  The  poetical  side  of  furniture  seems  to 
be  separate  from,  or  at  least  independent  of,  the  artistic. 
The  little  plain  chess-table  in  the  drawing-room  here  that 
you  and  I  played  upon  last  night  is  not  at  all  an  artistic 
piece  of  furniture,  but  it  is  poetical  —  that  is,  it  excites  a 
deep  emotional  interest,  for  it  once  belonged  to  Napoleon  L, 
and  its  chequer  of  ivory  and  ebony  has  often  served  him  for 
a  mimic  battlefield.  One's  ideas  run  from  that  to  other 
fields  of  other  combats  —  to  Mareugo  and  Waterloo  ;  and 
so  the  table  is  a  poetical  object,  for  it  excites  emotion.  But 
it  is  not  artistic,  being  in  the  worst  extreme  of  a  wretched 
epoch  in  art,  the  false  classicism  of  the  first  Empire. 

Mr.  Mantley.  It  is  observable,  too,  that  poets  furnish 
with  reference  to  the  feelings,  and  artists  mainly  for  the 
gratification  of  the  artistic  eye.  It  is  intensely  agreeable 
to  an  intellectual  man  to  be  frequently  reminded  of  great 
men  whom  he  admires  by  objects  which  either  belonged  to 
them  or  are,  in  some  obvious  way,  associated  with  their 
memories. 

The  Artist.  But  are  the  two  aims  incompatible  ?  Could 
not  a  house  be  furnished  both  intellectually  and  artisti- 
cally. 

'Mr.  Mantley.  The  aims  are  not  necessarily  incompatible, 
but  in  practice  they  very  much  interfere  with  each  other. 
People  generally  have  to  obey  some  leading  idea  when  they 
furnish.  The  leading  ideas  of  our  middle  class  are  the 
expression  of  wealth  and  the  love  of  regularity  and  order ; 
hence  the  richness  of  the  materials  they  employ,  the  formal 
arrangement  of  absolutely  similar  objects,  their  faultless 
cleanliness  and  polish,  their  perfect  mechanical  design,  and 
the  total  absence  of  intellectual,  or  even  aesthetic  interest  in 
all  of  them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  poet  or  scholar  is,  as 
a  rule,  given  to  the  chance  accumulation  of  odd  things  as 
they  please  him,  by  recalling  some  cherished  association  ; 
and  these  things  can  give  no  pleasure  to  the  eye  whether  of 
the  artist  or  the  housekeeper.  And  then  again  we  have  the 


352    Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation. 

artist  nature,  which,  of  course,  pleases  itself  by  arranging 
about  it  forms  and  colors,  so  as  to  afford  itself  endless 
delight  in  the  quiet  contemplation  of  them.  The  difficulty 
of  combining  the  two  last  is  that  the  severe  eye  of  the 
artist  would,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  exclude  as  discordant 
some  piece  of  furniture  that  the  scholar  might  love  for  rea- 
sons having  nothing  to  do  with  its  appearance. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  It  is  very  amusing  to  study  character  in 
furniture.  What  very  great  virtues  may  be  shown  in  very 
poor  things  !  I  have  a  neighbor,  an  old  maiden  lady,  whose 
furniture  is  not  what  our  friend  Mr.  Burley  would  call 
handsome,  and  it  is  certainly  not  artistic  ;  nevertheless,  it 
inspires  in  me  the  utmost  respect  and  esteem  for  its  posses- 
sor, for  it  is  so  simple  and  unpretending,  and  yet  so  useful, 
and  orderly,  and  comfortable.  Probably  at  an  auction  the 
whole  household  of  furniture  would  not  fetch  fifty  pounds ; 
and  yet  it  is  so  well  arranged,  and  harmonizes  so  well  with 
the  quiet,  unaffected,  and  somewhat  methodical  habits  of  the 
lady  of  the  house,  that  every  bit  of  it  has,  in  my  eyes,  a 
value  far  beyond  that  of  the  best  new  furniture  in  a  cab- 
inet-maker's shop.  Indeed,  I  have  heard  the  old  lady  declare 
that  she  would  not  on  any  account  admit  a  piece  of  new 
furniture  into  her  house,  because  it  would  spoil  her  old 
things  by  contrast ;  and  once,  when  she  wanted  a  sideboard, 
instead  of  ordering  one  at  the  cabinet-maker's,  she  hunted 
about  for  months  to  find  something  that  would  go  with 
her  other  things.  At  last  she  hit  upon  a  quaint  old  struc- 
ture of  dark  mahogany,  of  a  form  at  least  thirty  years  out 
of  fashion.  This  exactly  suited  her,  and  it  now  looks  as  if 
it  had  always  been  in  the  house.  Proofs  of  the  same  good 
taste  and  right  judgment  may  be  found  in  every  thing  about 
her. 

Mr.  Mantley.  I  have  as  great  a  dislike  to  new  furniture 
as  your  friend  the  old  maid.  New  furniture  is  as  bad  as  a 
new  house  —  it  has  no  associations.  Still,  even  new  furni- 
ture may  express  character.  For  instance,  Mr.  Burley, 
what  should  you  say  that  drawers  express  ? 

Mr.  Burley.  The  love  of  order.  The  main  use  of  fur- 
niture in  a  business  point  of  view  is,  that  it  is  such  a  help 


Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation.    353 

to  order.;  indeed  without  it  order  would  be  altogether 
impossible.  The  business  habits  of  men  may  be  guessed 
from  their  furniture.  The  great  object  is  to  keep  things  at 
once  separate  from  each  other,  and  easily  accessible  to 
their  owner.  Disorder  and  confusion  are  always  the  pun- 
ishment of  people  who  will  not  be  at  the  pains  to  under- 
stand this  theory.  No  amount  of  disorder  ever  conquered 
me,  and  I  know  by  practical  experience  in  affairs  that  I  am 
able  to  cope  with  any  amount  of  details,  but  not  single- 
handed.  I  require  the  assistance  of  the  cabinet-maker,  and 
he  is  the  first  man  I  call  in  when  there  is  a  difficulty.  Some 
time  since,  being  with  a  country  gentleman  of  moderate 
estate,  who  had  a  fancy  for  managing  his  own  property,  and 
who,  consequently,  had  got  it  into  a  state  of  awful  confusion, 
I  helped  him  out  of  it  in  a  fortnight  in  this  way.  I  got 
him  to  assign  me  a  particular  little  room  in  his  house  to  do 
what  I  liked  with.  I  sent  for  the  joiner.  I  had  the  room 
lined  all  round  from  top  to  bottom,  with  small  drawers 
varying  in  depth,  made  of  common  deal,  and  so  arranged 
that  four  locks  locked  them  all.*  When  this  was  finished 
I  had  the  front  of  the  drawers,  that  is,  the  whole  wall  of 
the  room,  painted  dark  green.  When  the  paint  was  dry  I 
admitted  the  owner  of  the  house.  "  What  are  all  these 
drawers  for  ?  "  said  he.  "  To  get  your  papers  in  order  ; 
fetch  me  all  your  papers."  Well,  he  brought  thousands  of 
different  papers,  all  iu  great  tin  boxes.  Now  a  box, 
especially  a  deep  one,  is  a  barbarous  piece  of  furniture  for 
purposes  of  order  ;  you  may  pack  it  in  a  very  orderly 
manner,  but  how  are  you  to  get  at  the  things  afterwards  ? 
A  box  lacks  the  necessary  quality  of  accessibility.  You 
have  to  turn  out  twenty  things  to  get  at  one  ;  hence  inevit- 
able disorder.  My  friend's  tin  boxes  were  all  in  that  state ; 
there  were  papers  in  them  that  ought  to  have  been  kept 
quite  accessible,  that  nobody  could  have  found  without  a 
week's  labor.  He  and  I  emptied  all  the  boxes,  and 
arranged  the  papers  in  the  drawers  according  to  a  definite 

*  Quite  possible  by  means  of  a  simple  arrangement  of  hinged  slips, 
vertical  and  horizontal. 

23 


354    Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation. 

plan  of  mine,  estate  by  estate,  with  subdivisions  of  farm  by 
farm.  I  chalked  the  contents  of  every  drawer  on  the  out- 
side of  it ;  then  I  locked  all  the  drawers,  and  sent  for  a 
painter  who  painted  the  words  in  great  white,  legible  cap- 
ital letters.  After  that,  I  left  the  house ;  but  a  year  after- 
wards my  friend  told  me  that  he  managed  his  business 
with  surprising  facility,  and  could  at  any  time  get  at  any 
little  fact  he  wanted  —  thanks  to  the  drawers. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  The  law  of  order  appears  to  be,  divide 
and  subdivide,  but  keep  accessible.  People  generally  do  not 
subdivide  enough.  They  imagine  that  a  very  rude  and 
broad  subdivision  will  suffice ;  but,  if  things  are  to  be 
instantaneously  accessible,  the  subdivision  must  be  carried 
very  far.  The  old  rude  system  of  deep  boxes  is  a  case  in 
point ;  if  you  subdivide  them  much,  the  things  are  no  longer 
accessible.  I  think  the  shopkeepers  teach  us  a  very  useful 
lesson  if  we  would  only  profit  by  it ;  the  order  in  a  well- 
kept  shop  is  really  very  admirable.  And  it  is  all  managed 
by  three  articles  of  furniture  —  the  shelf,  the  box,  and  the 
drawer.  Boxes  on  shelves  are  indeed  drawers  in  another 
form. 

The  Artist.  Studios  are  generally  very  disorderly;  I 
think  we  don't  pay  sufficient  attention  to  furniture  as  a 
help  to  order. 

Mr.  Burley.  You  painters  always  seek  the  picturesque 
in  furniture,  not  the  useful.  You  could  not  endure  a 
rational  chest  of  drawers ;  you  must  have  carved  cabinets 
with  griffins,  and  suits  of  sham  armor  hanging  over  them 
under  pretext  of  painting  armor,  which  most  of  you  never 
paint  at  all. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  Pray  don't  be  hard  on  carved  oak,  for 
my  house  is  full  of  it. 

Mr.  Burley.  Here  it  is  a  different  thing.  You  never 
bought  any  carved  oak  ;  and  yours  is  really  ancestral,  and 
therefore  respectable.  But  artists'  studios  are  furnished 
from  Wardour  Street.  I  have  a  great  dislike  to  modern 
antiques  ;  I  think  it  is  affectation  to  buy  them. 

The  Artist.  There  is  no  affectation  at  all  about  it  in 
our  case.  We  like  carved  things  because  their  varied  sur- 


Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation.    355 

faces  are  more  pleasing  to  the  eye,  and  more  like  nature, 
than  dull  flat  mahogany.  In  the  same  way  we  are  very 
fond  of  tapestry ;  nothing  is  better  for  a  painting  room 
than  carved  oak  backed  by  rich  tapestry,  because  in  the 
carved  oak  we  have  a  delightful  mystery  and  variety  of 
form,  and  in  the  tapestry  the  same  mystery  and  variety  in 
color. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  Should  you  think  the  love  of  carved 
oak  an  indication  of  artistic  taste  ?  I  know  many  men 
who  like  pictures  and  are  indifferent  to  carved  oak,  and, 
conversely,  others  who,  though  passionately  fond  of  carved 
oak,  care  nothing  whatever  for  painting. 

The  Artist.  Refined  painting  and  rough  wood  carving 
appeal,  in  many  ways,  to  two  different  ranks  of  mind.  It 
is  possible  to  enjoy  the  quaint  richness  of  carved  wood, 
without  any  very  delicate  sense  of  either  form  or  color, 
such  as  is  necessary  for  the  appreciation  of  pictures.  On 
the  other  hand,  a  lover  of  pictures  might  easily  become 
too  fastidious  to  enjoy  the  uncouth  and  barbarous  forms  of 
ordinary  Elizabethan  wood  carving.  A  connoisseur,  in 
whom  the  love  of  form  was  stronger  than  the  love  of  the 
picturesque,  would  have  plain  furniture  of  exquisite  form 
and  concentrate  all  his  sculpture  in  marble  statues. 

Mr.  Mantley.  I  think  it  a  pity  that  the  simple  country 
art  of  quaint  wood  carving  should  be  lost  to  our  common 
joiners ;  I  have  tried  to  teach  one  or  two.  I  can  carve 
tolerably  myself,  and  have  made  a  wardrobe  which  Mr. 
Plumpton  offered  me  two  cows  for. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  I  would  have  made  the  offer  in  money, 
but  I  thought  your  reverence  might  be  offended  ;  the 
wardrobe  is  really  an  admirable  specimen  of  inventive, 
quaint  wood  carving.  Mautley  chose  the  story  of  Joseph 
for  his  subject,  and  worked  it  out  panel  by  panel,  quite  in 
the  spirit  of  genuine  Gothic  art. 

Mr.  Mantley.  I  was  inspired  by  the  study  of  the  won- 
derful choir  at  Amiens,  the  most  perfect  achievement  in 
wood  carving  which  has  descended  to  us.  I  intend  the 
wardrobe  for  the  vestry  of  my  church.  But  about  teaching 
men  to  carve ;  the  difficulty  is,  that  they  are  all  mechanics 


356    Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation. 

in  these  times,  whereas  the  old  fellows  were  really  artists, 
though  quite  rough  ones.  Set  modern  workmen,  for 
example,  to  carve  a  running  pattern  of  vine  leaves. 
All  the  leaves  are  sure  to  come  exactly  alike,  and  you 
might  as  well  get  plaster  mouldings  at  so  much  a  foot.  In 
England  at  present  we  have  a  few  exquisite  artist  carvers, 
but  then  they  are  gentlemen  sculptors  in  wood.  What  we 
want  is  a  class  of  plain  workmen,  able  to  do  rough  and 
picturesque,  but  inventive  and  effective  wood  carving  for 
furniture ;  and  that  class  does  not  exist  here.  I  am  aware 
that  our  rich  people  are  as  much  in  fault  as  the  poor  ones. 
A  carver  once  told  me  that  his  employers  would  not  allow 
any  variety  in  his  flourishes,  but  measured  them  with  com- 
passes. According  to  their  ideas,  good  carving  meant 
accurately  mechanical  cutting  of  curves  out  of  mahogany. 
Such  training  is  nothing  short  of  a  systematic  suppression 
of  genius ;  and  that  is  the  way  our  ordinary  furniture 
carvers  are  trained.  Every  mahogany  sideboard  has  two 
little  flourishes  on  the  sides,  with  an  absurd  central  flour- 
ish on  the  top  of  its  back.  To  produce  those  ornaments 
is  the  beginning  and  end  of  ordinary  cabinet  maker's 
carving. 

The  Artist.  The  career  of  an  artist  is  peculiarly  diffi- 
cult to  follow ;  and,  unless  he  has  private  fortune,  or  the 
assistance  of  liberal  friends,  he  is  for  many  years  in  con- 
tinual danger  of  being  compelled  to  fall  back  upon  some- 
thing else.  In  England,  the  unsuccessful  artist  usually 
becomes  a  teacher  of  drawing.  In  France  he  often  be- 
comes a  sculptor  of  house  fronts,  a  decorative  painter,  or 
a  wood  carver.  Wood  carvers,  who  have  tried  to  be 
artists,  like  to  be  artists  still,  and  they  work  in  wood 
artistically.  Add  to  this  the  fact  that  taste  and  invention 
are  much  sought  after,  and  highly  appreciated  in  Paris, 
and  you  will  account  for  the  contrast.  Artistic  workmen 
carvers  abound  in  Paris,  and  are  very  rare  in  London. 
Carved  oak  in  Paris  is  no  modern  antique  —  no  piece  of 
affectation  at  all.  It  is  a  flourishing  contemporary  art, 
full  of  life,  and  proving  its  vitality  by  an  immense  produc- 
tion. And  it  is  not  the  mechanical  reproduction  of  old 


Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation.     357 

forms.  The  variety  and  novelty  of  the  products  prove  the 
vitality  of  the  art,  even  more  than  their  multiplicity. 
Every  day  hundreds  of  pieces  of  carved  furniture  are 
sent  into  the  market,  and  not  at  high  prices.  This  fur- 
niture is  just  as  honest  in  material  as  that  of  the  days  of 
Queen  Elizabeth;  it  is  all  in  solid  wood  —  there  is  no 
veneering. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  This  is  practical,  and  may  suit  my 
case.  That  furniture  is  cheap,  you  say,  in  Paris. 

The  Artist.  There  are  some  shops  on  the  Boulevards 
where  it  is  very  dear ;  but,  if  you  hunt  up  the  workmen 
themselves  at  their  own  houses,  and  get  acquainted  with 
them,  you  may  obtain  good  work  at  very  moderate  prices. 
You  may  get  a  very  pretty  carved  chair  for  about  a  sover- 
eign, a  good  carved  bookcase  for  about  eight,  and  a  rich 
cabinet  for  sixteen  or  twenty.  The  bookcase  in  my  paint- 
ing room  has  a  carved  cornice  and  frieze,  carved  frames  to 
its  glass  doors,  a  large  drawer  (the  foot  of  which  is  mas- 
sively carved),  two  carved  panels  to  the  lower  part,  two 
human  heads,  four  lions'  heads,  and  two  full  length  stat- 
uettes. Add  to  this  four  rich  bunches  of  fruit,  and  some 
carving  on  the  edges  of  the  shelves,  and  consider  the 
dimensions  —  nearly  eight  feet  high  —  and  the  fact  that 
every  scrap  of  wood  about  it  is  genuine  oak,  guiltless  of 
veneer,  and  you  cannot  think  it  dear  at  eight  pounds.  I 
have  a  table,  with  massive  twisted  legs  and  connecting 
pieces,  carved  at  the  intersections,  a  large  drawer,  a  band 
of  effective  carving  all  round  as  deep  as  the  drawer,  and  a 
carved  moulding  above  ;  the  whole  in  perfectly  solid  oak. 
I  bought  that  table  quite  new  of  the  man  who  made  it.  I 
gave  him  exactly  two  pounds  for  it.  A  dealer  in  London 
asked  me  ten  for  a  very  similar  table. 

Mr.  Mantley.  The  modern  carving  in  Paris  is  all  either 
renaissance  or  modern  naturalistic.  They  can't  carve 
Gothic.  They  don't  seem  to  me  to  understand  Gothic.* 

*  There  is  a  school  of  Gothic  stone  sculptors  in  France,  trained  under 
Viollet-le  J)uc,  in  the  old  cathedrals,  who  have  really  caught  the  true 
Gothic  spirit.  However,  these  men  do  not  produce  furniture ;  so  I  cannot 
speak  of  them  here. 


358     Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation. 

The  Artist.  The  wood  carvers  are  trained  in  the 
renaissance  school,  and  produce  work  like  the  best  of 
the  later  renaissance  carving,  modified  to  a  considerable 
extent  by  the  modern  study  of  nature.  I  had  a  curious 
instance  of  how  incapable  a  true  renaissance  carver  is  of 
reproducing  Gothic  ideas.  I  designed  a  piece  of  furniture 
in  the  true  old  Gothic  spirit  —  full  of  quaint  Gothic 
inventions,  especially  a  great  battle  of  griffins  and  ser- 
pents —  that  I  very  much  wished  to  see  realized  in  wood. 
I  could  not  get  it  done  in  all  Paris.  The  carvers  would 
not  work  from  my  design,  but  always  asked  permission  to 
make  a  design  of  their  own  from  it.  They  produced  very 
clever  designs  indeed,  but  they  entirely  eliminated  the 
Gothic  feeling :  they  translated  the  design  into  renais- 
sance. At  last  I  abandoned  the  project. 

Mr.  Mantley.  The  specimens  of  French  carving  at  the 
Exhibition  were  very  dear,  though  exquisitely  beautiful. 
The  -  price  of  one  small  black  cabinet  was  over  twelve 
hundred  pounds. 

The  Artist.  That  was  not  merely  carving  in  the  ordi- 
nary sense  ;  it  was  excellent  sculpture  in  wood.  Furniture 
of  that  sort  is  a  product  of  Fine  Art,  just  like  pictures,  and 
naturally  brings  high  prices.  But  that  I  was  speaking  of 
is  rude  in  execution. 

Mr.  Burley.  I  have  seen  first-rate  carving  done  by  a 
machine,  and  cheaper  than  your  Frenchmen  could  do  it. 

Mr.  Mantley.  All  machine  carving  that  I  have  seen 
loses  its  charm  at  the  second  glance.  Just  at  first  you  may 
fancy  that  there  is  something  in  it ;  but,  as  soon  as  the  eye 
has  had  time  to  wander  over  its  details,  the  cheat  is  dis- 
covered, and  your  interest  is  gone.  There  is  no  life  in  the 
touches  —  no  expression. 

The  Artist.  You.  might  as  well  try  to  paint  by  a 
machine. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  What  do  you  think  of  the  modern  sub- 
stitution of  the  beauty  of  wood  for  the  effect  of  carving  ? 
In  Queen  Elizabeth's  time,  men  sought  richness  by  cutting 
their  wood  into  different  shapes.  Now  we  get  the  most 


Furniture :  An  After- Dinner  Conversation.    359 

richly  marked  woods,  and  show  their  natural  beauty  by 
polishing  them.  Is  this  an  advance  or  not  ? 

Mr.  Mantley.  I  think  it  a  sign  of  the  decline  of  art. 
It  is  the  substitution  of  a  beauty  ready-made  to  hand,  and 
easily  come  by,  for  the  intellectual  beauty  of  man's  labor. 
Fancy  the  difference  between  a  Gothic  panel  containing  a 
bas-relief  and  a  moderate  sideboard  panel  containing  a 
piece  of  well-selected  and  prettily  veined  mahogany:  in 
the  one  is  much  thought  and  intellect,  in  the  other  nothing 
but  a  pretty  piece  of  wood. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  Yet  I  think  the  use  of  beautiful  woods, 
simply  polished,  is^  quite  as  justifiable  as  the  old  Venetian 
use  of  polished  sheets,  or  veneers  of  marble.  There  is  no 
difference  between  the  two  cases ;  for  in  both  man  takes  a 
natural  product,  and  cuts  it  into  thin  slices,  which  he  pol- 
ishes to  show  their  beauty. 

The  Artist.  Yes,  but  the  Venetians  used  their  marble 
artistically,  and  we  use  our  mahogany  without  any  sense 
of  its  artistic  availableness.  I  have  rarely  seen  sheets 
of  beautiful  wood  employed,  with  a  just  sense  of  their 
value,  as  decoration.  There  are  possibilities  of  great 
achievements  in  this  way,  for  the  field  is  almost  untried. 
Wood  of  different  kinds  gives  a  great  variety  of  good 
color. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  There  are  two  other  debatable  ques- 
tions connected  with  this.  Ought  we  to  veneer?  and 
ought  we  to  encourage  painted  imitation  of  particular 
woods  ? 

Mr.  Mantley.  I  am  not  so  severe  as  Mr.  Rusk  in  on 
these  points.  His  laudable  love  of  honesty  in  art  carried 
him,  in  this  instance,  much  too  far.  Veneering  is  a  natural 
consequence  of  the  love  of  beautiful  woods,  and  is  not  dis- 
honest, because  everybody  knows  that  very  beautifully 
veined  furniture  is  sure  to  be  veneered,  if  its  form  will 
admit  of  it.  I  consider  veneering  to  be  the  exercise  of  a 
wise  economy,  and  no  more  dishonest  than  gilding.  Again, 
as  to  painting  imitations  of  woods,  why  not  ?  There  is  no 
fraud  about  it.  None  but  a  very  unobservant  person 
would  ever  imagine  that  painted  deal  was  oak ;  but  the 


360    Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation. 

graining  gives  more  variety  to  the  eye  than  one  color 
could,  and  it  is  in  its  way  an  imitation  of  nature,  and 
therefore  indicative  of  an  appreciation  of  natural  beauty, 
though  of  a  very  humble  order.  Of  course,  if  it  were 
done  to  deceive,  I  should  condemn  it,  and  veneering  too. 

The  Artist.  But  modern  English  furniture  is  really 
dishonest.  A  friend  of  mine  paid  thirteen  guineas  for  a 
table  that  will  not  bear  any  comparison  with  the  one  I  got 
for  fifty  francs  of  that  honest  French  carver.  My  friend's 
table  is  veneered,  of  course,  all  over,  and  has  two  borders 
of  machine  carving  running  all  round  it  that  are  simply 
glued  on.  The  table  pretends  to  be  of  $ak,  but  the  carved 
borders  are  stained  beech,  because  beech  is  easier  to  work. 
My  table  is  all  solid  oak  and  carved  by  the  hand.  I  would 
not  exchange  mine  for  his  if  he  gave  me  a  sovereign  into 
the  bargain. 

Mr.  Burley.  Our  cabinet-makers  carry  veneering  very 
far.  They  sometimes  veneer  wood  on  both  sides  and  on 
the  edges.  It  takes  rather  a  keen  eye  to  find  them  out, 
for  they  contrive  to  follow  the  way  the  grain  would  run  in 
solid  wood.  That  is  fraudulent ;  at  least  it  deceives  many 
purchasers.  I  know  people  who  have  bought  furniture 
under  the  impression  that  it  was  solid,  which  furniture  I 
found,  on  examination,  to  be  artfully  veneered  on  common 
white  wood.  I  think,  though,  our  English  cabinet-makers 
turn  out,  as  a  rule,  work  unsurpassed  for  accuracy  of  ad- 
justment. Their  measurements  are  true  and  careful, 
and  their  work  is  practically  convenient,  because  it  runs 
smoothly.  I  have  no  doubt  your  French  carver  makes 
more  picturesque  furniture,  but  I  should  be  much  surprised 
if  his  drawers  work  as  well  as  those  my  cabinet-maker 
turns  out. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  We  have  kept  long  enough  on  gener- 
alities ;  let  us  get  to  something  definite.  I  want  to  furnish 
my  house  in  London.  I  beg  you  all  to  give  me  the  benefit 
of  your  advice.  Let  us  begin  with  the  dining-room. 

Mr.  Burley.  Mahogany,  of  course.  It  is  warm  and 
comfortable  looking.  Have  dark  red  cushions  and  a  green 
flock  paper.  I  hate  a  chilly  dining-room.  The  French, 


Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation.    361 

who  love  good  eating,  don't  seem  to  understand  how 
necessary  a  comfortable  dining-room  is  to  the  enjoyment 
of  a  good  dinner. 

Mr.  Mantley.  Their  dining-rooms  are  very  simply  fur- 
nished, because  they  never  sit  in  them  either  between  or 
after  meals,  but  as  we  sit  here  in  council  over  Plumpton's 
Port,  we  enjoy  his  thick  carpet  and  soft  seats.  So  I  should 
agree  with  you  in  recommending  a  comfortable  dining- 
room,  but  not  as  to  the  taste  in  which  you  would  furnish 
it.  Plumpton  is  not  a  rich  merchant,  but  a  country  gentle- 
man, with  a  turn  for  art.  He  should  have  carved  oak. 

Mr.  jBurley.  That's  because  you  carved  the  wardrobe. 
Do  you  want  Plumpton  to  have  the  history  of  Joseph  in 
his  dining-room  ?  Carved  oak  may  be  right  enough  here 
at  Plumpton  Court ;  I  don't  say  no ;  but  in  London,  with 
cabs  and  omnibuses  in  hearing,  it  is  out  of  place. 

The  Artist.  I  recommend  carved  oak,  but  not  such 
rude  work  as  you  have  here.  In  London  it  should  be 
modern,  graceful,  and  artistic,  not  Elizabethan  and  gro- 
tesque. I  think  Mr.  Burley  is  right  in  objecting  to  Eliza- 
bethan oak  in  a  modern  London  house,  because  the  house 
and  its  contents  would  be  incompatible  with  each  other. 
Mr.  Plumpton  should  employ  the  best  artist  carvers,  and 
have  exquisite  modern  furniture  in  solid  oak  left  of  its 
natural  color. 

Mr.  Plumpton.     Neither  stained  nor  varnished  ? 

The  Artist.  Neither.  It  is  right  to  stain  and  varnish 
rude  work,  because  that  adds  richness  and  hides  defects. 
But  the  glitter  of  the  varnish  and  the  darkness  of  the 
stain  are  an  injury  to  really  delicate  work,  because  they 
prevent  it  from  being  seen.  It  would  be  as  barbarous  to 
stain  and  varnish  a  piece  of  really  fine  sculpture  in  wood, 
as  to  paint  the  Venus  de  Medici  dark  brown  and  give  her 
three  coats  of  copal. 

Mr.  Plumpton.     Well,  and  about  the  walls  ? 

The  Artist.  The  best  thing  with  new  carved  oak  is 
dark  green  velvet.  Have  your  walls  divided  in  panels 
with  frames  of  exquisitely  carved  new  oak,  and  fill  these 


362    Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation. 

panels  with  green  velvet.  The  cornice  all  round  the  top 
should  be  of  carved  oak  too ;  and  in  it  you  might  intro- 
duce a  series  of  armorial  shields  from  your  pedigree, 
either  carved  in  the  wood  and  left  without  color,  or  else 
illuminated  in  gold  and  color  on  plain  shields,  but  not  both 
carved  and  painted. 

Mr.  Plumpton.     Any  pictures  ? 

The  Artist.  Of  course.  I  want  the  dark  green  velvet 
in  the  panels  for  the  pictures.  You  ought  to  have  a  series  of 
pictures  connected  with  each  other  by  their  subjects,  and, 
if  possible,  painted  by  the  same  hand. 

Mr.  Mantley.  Old  portraits  from  here  would  do  very 
well. 

The  Artist.  No,  they  would  be  incongruous.  They  are 
better  where  they  are  in  the  old  house.  Modern  portraits, 
on  the  other  hand,  would  be  hideous.  A  series  of  illustra- 
tions of  some  place,  if  landscapes,  or  of  some  poet,  if  figure 
subjects,  would  do  better.  For  example:  a  set  of  illustra- 
tions of  Mr.  Plumpton's  most  picturesque  estate,  or  a 
series  of  subjects  from  Tennyson.  I  would  not  have  many 
pictures.  Three  very  large  ones  would  look  more  majestic 
than  a  crowd  of  little  ones.  One  great  picture  on  each 
wall  is  my  ideal,  and  none,  of  course,  near  the  windows. 
The  dislike  to  large  pictures  is  very  general  and  quite 
groundless.  People  who  have  plenty  of  room  for  large 
pictures  tell  you  they  have  no  room,  with  great  blank 
spaces  of  wall  everywhere.  For  such  a  dining-room  as 
yours  I  would  have  three  pictures,  twelve  feet  long  each. 
Your  velvet  panelling  must,  of  course,  be  arranged  ex- 
pressly to  receive  them.  The  pictures  should  be  warm  in 
color  on  account  of  the  green  walls. 

Mr.  Plumpton.     But  the  chairs  and  carpet  ? 

The  Artist.  The  chairs  green  velvet  like  the  walls,  the 
oak  carved  richly,  yet  not  so  as  to  interfere  with  comfort ; 
the  carpet  ultramarine  blue  with  a  broad  border  of  green 
oak  leaves,  and  the  curtains  ultramarine  velvet,  with  a 
border  embroidered  in  green  silk. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  Blue  and  green  together !  Mrs.  Plump- 
ton  will  never  hear  of  such  a  violation  of  good  taste. 


Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation.    363 

Mr.  Mantley.  Where  did  you  ever  see  such  an  un- 
natural combination  ? 

Mr.  Burley.  You  artists  sneer  at  upholsterers ;  why, 
any  upholsterer  knows  better  than  to  put  two  such  dis- 
cordant colors  as  blue  and  green  together. 

The  Artist.  I  am  sorry  to  have  irritated  you  all ;  but 
you  asked  my  advice,  and  I  gave  it.  Shall  I  go  on  or  not  ? 
If  I  go  on,  I  am  sure  to  offend  y.ou.  I  had  better  have 
held  my  tongue. 

Mr.  Plwmpton.  Go  on,  go  on  ;  we  want  to  hear  what 
you  have  got  to  say  for  yourself.  We  have  him  now,  eh, 
Mantley  ?  Blue  and  green  together !  I  wonder  how  he 
will  reason  us  into  such  a  strange  theory  as  that ! 

TJie  Artist.  I  will  answer  you  one  by  one.  If  Mrs. 
Plumpton  dislikes  blue  and  green  together,  it  is  merely  be- 
cause her  milliner  told  her  to  do  so,  and  she,  out  of  pure 
humility,  obeys.  But  her  own  feelings  are  right,  because 
her  senses  are  sound.  Only  this  very  morninjr,  as  we  were 
looking  at  the  humming-birds  in  her  little  room,  she  par- 
ticularly called  my  attention  to  one,  colored  exactly  on  the 
principle  of  my  carpet,  —  dark  azure,  with  touches  of  in- 
tense green  ;  and  she  liked  that  the  best  of  all  of  them.  In 
answer  to  Mr.  Mantley's  question  where  did  I  ever  see 
such  an  unnatural  combination  ?  I  may  say,  everywhere 
in  nature.  Green  hills  and  blue  sky,  green  leaves  against 
the  intense  azure  overhead,  green  shores  of  lakes  and 
blue  water,  green  transparence  and  blue  reflections  on  sea 
waves,  green  shallows  and  blue  deep  water  in  the  sea,  blue 
plumage  of  birds  with  green  gleaming  in  it,  blue  flowers 
amongst  their  own  green  leaves,  blue-bells  in  the  green 
grass,  green  and  blue  both  at  their  brightest  on  the  wings  of 
a  butterfly,  green  and  blue  on  a  thousand  insects,  green  and 
blue  wedded  together  by  God  himself  all  over  this  colored 
world.  There,  Mr.  Mantley,  there  have  I  seen  what  you 
please  to  call  an  unnatural  combination !  And  you,  Mr. 
Burley,  how  can  you  possibly  think  that  artists  who  own 
no  law  but  that  of  the  Divine  example  can  concern  them- 
selves with  the  dicta  of  tradesmen,  who  refer  nothing  to 
nature  ?  If  you  want  to  color  well,  either  in  furniture  or 


364    Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation. 


any  thing  else,  go  and  study  color  in  God's  works,  not  in 
tailors'  fashion  books  and  upholsterers'  shop  windows.* 

Mr.  Plumpton.  If  I  put  green  and  blue  together,  every 
lady  will  say  I  have  no  taste.  They  don't  believe  in  na- 
ture ;  they  believe  in  milliners.  But  now  about  the  draw- 
ing-room ? 

Mr.  Mantley.  Very  delicate  and  dangerous  ground. 
The  drawing-room  is  a  lady's  own  territory.  Mrs.  Plump- 
ton  may  not  particularly  care  to  have  other  influences 
than  hers  brought  to  bear  upon  you  on  that  question. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  She  will  be  glad  of  good  advice.  Let 
us  think  the  matter  over.  Pale  colors  of  course. 

The  Artist.  Why  so  pale  ?  I  protest  against  the  pallor 
of  English  drawing-rooms.  They  are  all  gray  and  white, 
and  at  once  chilly  and  frivolous. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  I  may  begin  by  saying  that  I  shall  hang 
my  best  modern  pictures  in  my  town  drawing-room. 

The  Artist.  Then  have  dark  colors.  They  make  the 
splendor  of  splendid  things  tell.  My  ideal  of  a  drawing- 
room  is  derived  from  French  salons,  but  mainly  with  a 
view  to  help  the  effect  of  works  of  art.  It  is  a  common 
error  to  spend  money  in  pictures,  and  then  begrudge  the 
outlay  necessary  to  show  them  to  advantage.  Better  buy 
one  picture  less,  and  spend  the  money  in  velvet  and  ebony. 
The  walls  should  be  panelled  with  frames  of  ebony  filled 
with  velvet  of  a  rich  violet  color.  There  ought  to  be  mag- 
nificent mirrors,  let  in  here  and  there  in  place  of  the 
velvet;  and  round  the  mirrors  the  ebony  should  be  en- 
riched with  the  most  delicate  carving.  The  chimney-piece 

*  People  who  are  not  artists,  and  have  no  confidence  in  their  own 
judgment  about  the  employment  of  color  in  furniture,  may  overcome  the 
difficulty  by  a  simple  obedience  to  the  Divine  answers  to  all  artistic  ques- 
tions which  exist  so  profusely  in  nature.  The  combinations  of  color  in 
nature  are,  on  the  whole,  better  than  those  of  our  carpet  manufacturers 
and  paper  stainers.  Select  a  beautiful  bird,  or  butterfly,  or  plant,  — that 
which  pleases  you  best;  take  the  colors  you  find  in  it,  and  of  them  com- 
pose the  coloring  of  your  room.  Mind  you  match  the  colors  exactly  (no 
easy  matter);  then  take  care  to  keep  the  same  proportions  as  to  quantity, 
and,  as  nearly  as  possible,  the  same  relation  as  to  juxtaposition.  Thus, 
by  humbly  accepting  the  teaching  of  nature,  you  shall  color  your  room 
well. 


Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation.    365 

should  be  of  pure  white  marble  sculptured  by  some  great 
sculptor.  Against  your  violet  velvet  beautiful  statues 
should  relieve  themselves,  and  between  each  pair  of 
statues  a  noble  picture  should  bang.  All  round  the  room, 
silver  candlesticks  of  exquisite  design  should  spring  from 
the  ebony  frames  of  the  panels,  each  a  separate  invention. 

Mr.  Plumpton.     Very  good.     And  the  furniture  ? 

The  Artist.  It  might  be  either  ebony  with  orange  dam- 
ask, or  gilded  with  violet  velvet.  In  the  one  case,  you 
would  carry  the  wood  work  of  the  walls  into  the  furniture  ; 
in  the  other,  the  hanging.  The  carpet  might  consist  of  a 
chequer  of  alternate  lozenges  of  needle- work,  in  one  of 
which  an  orange  pattern  was  presented  on  a  violet  ground, 
and  in  the  other  the  same  pattern  heraldically  counter- 
changed  fo  violet  upon  orange.* 

Mr.  Mantley.  Mrs.  Plumpton  has  too  much  good  taste 
to  cover  her  drawing-room  table  with  frivolous  toys ;  but 
many  ladies  would  ruin  the  effect  of  such  a  drawing-room 
as  you  suggest,  by  the  introduction  of  many  little  frivoli- 
ties, entirely  out  of  harmony  with  the  sober  grandeur  of 
your  idea.  Your  room  seems  fit  for  women  of  high  cul- 
ture, but  not  for  all  women.  It  would  be  too  grave  and 
artistic  for  many.  Light  papers,  miscellaneous  needle- 
work and  toys,  and  showy  ornaments  give  a  general  ap- 
pearance of  trifling  which  is  more  popular,  because  more 
in  harmony  with  tea  and  small  talk.  Character,  after  all, 
governs  furniture,  and  frivolous  people  will  always  furnish 
frivolously,  do  what  you  will. 

The  Artist.  I  have  no  objection  to  needlework  in  itself ; 
but  ladies  often  spoil  their  rooms  by  the  introduction  of 
it,  because  they  are  not  able  to  color.  The  color  faculty  is 
very  rare  in  England.  But  a  lady  who  was  really  a  color- 
ist  might  find  infinite  employment  for  her  needle  in  such  a 
room  as  I  should  like.  The  curtains  and  carpet  and  cush- 
ions might  be  all  of  tapestry  done  with  the  needle,  but 
done  in  obedience  to  a  dominant  note  of  color,  given  in  this 

*.  In  a  certain  French  house,  the  carpet  of  the  salon  is  formed  of  needle- 
work and  velvet  in  broad  bands.  The  velvet  is  the  same  as  that  on  the 
walla ;  the  needlework  recalls  the  prevailing  colors  of  the  furniture. 


366    Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation. 

case  by  the  violet  velvet  of  the  walls  of  the  room.  Toys 
on  the  table  are  intended  to  help  people  to  something  that 
they  can  talk  about ;  so  they  have  a  certain  social  use. 
But  they  should  be  exquisite  little  works  of  art  or  relics 
of  antiquity,  such  as  ancient  Roman  or  mediaeval  jewelry, 
or  Italian  goldsmith's  work,  always  possessing  either  an 
intellectual  or  artistic  interest,  —  not  mere  children's  play- 
things bought  at  toy-shops. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  We  are  getting  on  very  slowly.  We 
have  the  library  and  bedrooms  to  do  yet. 

Mr.  Burley.  I  think  you  are  going  very  fast.  Those 
two  rooms  will  cost  you  ten  thousand  pounds  if  you  carry 
out  all  these  artistic  suggestions.  Such  doctrines  as  we 
have  been  listening  to  are  not  for  people  of  moderate 
fortune. 

The  Artist.  They  are  for  everybody's  house  and 
everybody's  pocket.  People  who  cannot  afford  velvet 
can  afford  paper,  and  good  color  is  obtainable  in  very 
humble  materials.  The  artist  instinct  works  in  clay 
and  iron  as  well  as  in  marble  and  gold.  The  arch-enemy 
of  art  is  not  poverty,  but  vulgarity.  A  poor  woman  may 
prove  herself  a  colorist  by  the  wise  employment  of  a  few 
threads  of  dyed  wool ;  a  rich  one  may  proclaim  her*  in- 
competence in  the  arrangement  of  the  costliest  tissues. 

Mr.  Mantky.  For  the  library,  have  intellectual  associa- 
tions. Furnish  for  the  mind.  Have  busts  or  pictures  of 
great  authors  ;  have  objects  illustrative  of  history.  The 
chairs  and  tables  should  be  comfortable  and  convenient  for 
study,  the  book-cases  orderly  and  well  arranged.  In  a 
modern  house  I  should  recommend  mahogany  for  the 
library,  with  pomegranate-colored  morocco.  The  carpet  a 
pleasant  green,  for  contrast. 

Mr.  Burley.  Good  ;  we  are  coming  to  common  sense  at 
last !  It  was  high  time  we  did  !  Don't  forget  to  have  a 
great  writing-table  with  lots  of  drawers. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  A  good  plan  for  bedrooms  is  to  furnish 
them  according  to  some  dominant  color ;  it  gives  a  name 
for  each.  Here  we  have  the  amber-room,  the  crimson-room, 


Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation.    367 

the  blue-room,  etc.  I  intend  to  follow  the  same  plan  in 
town.  It  is  a  good  old-fashioned  country  plan. 

Tlie  Artist.  It  is  also  eminently  artistic,  and  might  be 
carried  out  to  the  greatest  advantage.  You  will  have  some 
difficulty  about  papers  and  carpets.  You  will  probably 
have  to  get  them  all  made  on  purpose. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  Very  well ;  you  shall  have  the  ordering 
of  the  color.  Mrs.  Plumpton  will  be  glad  to  have  it  in 
such  good  hands ;  only  you  will  have  to  use  all  your  elo- 
quence to  reconcile  her  to  your  heterodox  views. 

The  Artist.  I  shall  take  her  to  the  humming-birds,  and 
deliver  a  short  lecture  upon  them.  If  the  humming-birds 
don't  win  my  battle  for  me,  I  have  two  strong  armies  in 
reserve,  —  the  butterflies  and  moths  in  the  museum,  and 
the  flowers  in  the  garden  and  conservatory. 

Mr.  Mantley.  We  were  talking  about  the  poetry  of  fur- 
niture. English  bedrooms  are  peculiarly  deficient  in 
poetry.  With  rare  exceptions,  they  are  only  fit  for  sleep- 
ing in.  I  think  a  bedroom  should  be  very  beautiful.  A 
young  lady's  bedroom,  especially,  should  be  delicate  and 
gay,  with  all  sorts  of  pretty  evidences  of  the  refinement  of 
its  occupant. 

Mr.  Plumpton.  In  nearly  all  English  bedrooms  the  bed 
occupies  too  large  a  space,  and  the  use  of  the  room  is  quite 
undisguised.  That  is  because  we  never  receive  friends  in 
our  bedrooms.  The  unquestionable  superiority  of  French 
bedrooms  is  chiefly  due  to  the  fact  that  the  French  receive 
their  friends  there.  I  sometimes  spend  a  week  or  two 
with  an  old  friend  of  mine  in  a  French  chateau,  and  my 
bedroom  there  is  really  very  pretty.  A  fine  piece  of 
tapestry  drawn  across  the  alcove  hides  the  bed  during  the 
daytime ;  and  the  rest  of  the  room  is  furnished  as  a  pleas- 
ant mixture  of  the  salon  and  library,  all  the  apparatus  for 
washing  being  in  a  bath-room  close  at  hand.  In  houses 
where  you  cannot  give  a  private  sitting-room  to  each 
guest,  I  think  the  bedrooms  certainly  ought  to  contain 
every  thing  necessary  to  a  man  who  may  wish  to  spend 
some  hours  every  day  in  privacy,  and  either  write  or  read 
as  he  likes. 


368     Furniture :  An  After-Dinner  Conversation. 

Mr.  Plampton.  We  have  entirely  neglected  one  little 
fact  about  furniture,  —  the  astonishing  hold  it  gains  on  our 
affections.  I  don't  know  whether  you  are  like  me,  Mant- 
ley  ;  but  I  could  not  part  with  my  old  furniture  without  a 
bitter  pang.  It  seems  to  me  that  one  of  the  saddest  things 
about  coming  to  poverty  must  be  to  separate  one's  self  from 
all  these  dear  old  silent  companions,  these  dumb  sharers 
and  witnesses  of  our  privacy  that  inhabit  our  rooms  with  us. 
I  never  could  sell  my  old  mother's  favorite  chairs  and  ta- 
bles ;  and  then  the  bed  she  died  in,  how  sacred  it  is, 
Mantley ! 

Mr.  Mantley.  Yes ;  all  the  power  that  wealth  and 
genius  give  to  furniture  is  nothing  to  the  power  of  that 
kind  of  association.  A  king's  throne  may  dazzle  and 
overawe  us ;  but  the  simple  chair  of  a  dear  friend  who 
is  dead  moves  us  far  more  deeply.  We  get  so  attached 
to  some  pieces  of  furniture  that  they  become  to  us  as  if 
endowed  with  a  kind  of  affection  themselves,  and  we  half 
believe  not  only  that  we  love  them,  but  that  they  love  us. 
We  should  not  like  to  sell  them  to  people  for  whom  they 
were  only  pieces  of  wood,  not  friends. 


The  Artistic  Spirit.  369 


XIX. 

THE    ARTISTIC    SPIRIT. 

r  I  ^HE  following  slight  notes  on  a  very  deep  and  subtle 
**•  subject  have  no  pretension  to  exhaust  it,  or  even  to 
get  quite  to  the  bottom  of  it.  Just  after  writing  them  I 
perceive  already  that  more  things  might  have  been  said, 
and  even  these  few  things  better  said.  Still,  such  observa- 
tions as  these,  though  somewhat  baldly  set  down,  may  have 
a  certain  utility  in  times  when  there  is  more  external  inter- 
est in  art  than  inward  sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  it.  If 
once  the  spirit  of  art  were  fully  entered  into,  a  true  under- 
standing of  it  would  ultimately  follow ;  but  the  erudition 
of  criticism  is  in  vain,  if  we  have  not  that  inward  sympa- 
thy. How  rare  this  is  I  hardly  like  to  say  positively,  for 
it  may  be  more  frequent  amongst  unknown  lovers  of  art 
than  I  know  of,  or  at  present  imagine.  But  amongst 
known  writers  it  is  indeed  very  rare.  Robert  Browning 
thoroughly  enters  into  the  artistic  mind,  and  sees  it  from 
the  inside ;  but  no  other  English  poet  ever  did  that.  And 
of  prose  writers  Thackeray  understood  artists.  These  two 
are  on  the  inside ;  Scott,  Byron,  Wordsworth,  and  their 
predecessors,  on  the  outside  only. 

1.  As  to  Aristocracy.  —  The  spirit  of  aristocracy  would 
seem  to  have  this  in  common  with  art,  that  it  loves  refine- 
ment and  grace.  The  fine  art  of  an  aristocracy  is  its  good 
behavior ;  and  the  perfect  aristocrat,  with  his  grand  air 
and  fine  manner,  has  always  been  a  favorite  with  the  best 
figure  painters.  But  to  conclude  that  between  art  and 
aristocracy  there  is  any  thing  more  than  an  occasional 
sympathy  would  be  erroneous.  Art  is  not  necessary  to  an 
aristocracy,  as  such,  the  only  arts  which  really  serve  it 
being  family  portraiture  and  the  degree  of  architecture, 
24 


370  The  Artistic  Spirit. 

scarcely  deserving  the  name  of  a  fine  art,  which  suffices  to 
distinguish  the  house  of  the  great  land-owner.  There  is 
true  and  intimate  sympathy  between  aristocracies  and 
established  military  and  ecclesiastical  hierarchies,  true  and 
intimate  antipathy  between  aristocracies,  and  dissent  in 
politics  and  religion  ;  but  between  the  spirit  of  art  and  the 
spirit  of  aristocracy  there  is  coolness,  and  that  coolness 
neither  writing  nor  lecturing  is  likely  to  overcome. 

But  then,  on  the  other  hand,  art  is  not  particularly  dem- 
ocratic. Artists,  if  they  find  little  to  appeal  to  in  the  rich- 
est class,  find  still  less  in  those  poorer  classes  whose  entire 
energy  is  absorbed  in  the  struggle  for  daily  bread.  It  is 
true  that  the  French  republicans  have  usually,  even  in  the 
midst  of  the  utmost  national  excitement,  found  leisure  to 
care  for  the  protection  and  encouragement  of  art ;  but  this 
is  less  a  republican  than  a  national  sentiment.  It  is  an 
accepted  creed  in  the  minds  of  all  Frenchmen  that  their 
country  has  conquered,  and  must  maintain,  the  first  place 
in  two  things  —  war  and  art ;  nor  could  any  popular  gov- 
ernment altogether  refuse  to  employ  artists  and  keep  up 
picture  galleries.  Even  Louis  Phillippe,  who  shared  and 
represented  the  bourgeois  feeling,  spent  money  on  pictures 
for  Versailles,  though  these  were  generally  bad  ones ;  and 
the  present  Emperor  cherishes  art  as  much  as  his  prede- 
cessors did. 

Yet,  though  art  be  neither  aristocratic  nor  democratic,  it 
is  worthy  of  remark  that  whenever  the  artistic  spirit  devel- 
ops itself,  it  effaces,  between  the  persons  possessing  it,  the 
distinctions  of  rank.  A  man  of  rank,  endowed  with  artis- 
tic perceptions,  is  drawn  towards  all  true  artists  by  a  feel- 
ing of  confraternity.  It  has  been  observed  even  of 
photography,  that  it  affords  a  common  ground  on  which 
men  of  all  classes  fraternize.  This  is  still  more  true  of 
painting,  probably  because  painting  cultivates  the  feelings 
so  much  more,  and  therefore  awakens  subtler  sympathies. 
Much  has  been  written  by  Thackeray  and  other  novelists 
about  the  narrow  contempt  with  which  society  regards  art 
and  artists.  The  truth  is  that  so  long  as  people1  of  station 
are  ignorant  of  art,  they  do  undoubtedly  hold  its  professors 


The  Artistic  Spirit.  371 

in  slight  esteem,  because  the  Fine  Arts  can  only  influence 
by  sympathy,  never  by  force.  But  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
equally  true  that  when  rich  men  are  endowed  with  the 
faculties  which  apprehend  art,  they  always  respect  good 
artists,  and  show  that  they  value  their  friendship. 

2.  As  to  the  Bourgeois  Spirit.  —  The  state  of  mind  in 
which  our  middle  classes  and  the  French  bourgeois  live,  is 
unfavorable  to  art  in  many  ways.  Competence  and  com- 
fort and  cleanliness  are  very  good  and  pleasant  and  desir- 
able, and  it  is  wonderful  with  how  little  money  a  managing 
couple  in  the  middle  classes  will  procure  those  blessings ; 
but  when  they  are  made  the  only  aims  of  life,  they  bring 
on  an  incredible  pettiness  of  soul.  I  never  met  with  any 
thoroughly  bourgeois  mind  which  had  the  least  understand- 
ing of  art.  If,  for  example,  a  mayor  and  common  council, 
composed  of  this  class  of  people,  have  to  deliberate  about 
the  destruction  of  some  grand  relic  of  the  middle  ages,  you 
may  perhaps  find  some  one  man  amongst  them  who  is 
superior  enough  to  think  that  the  object  ought  to  be  pre- 
served for  its  historical  or  antiquarian  interest,  but  you 
would  not  be  likely  to  find  any  one  to  suggest  its  preserva- 
tion on  purely  artistic  grounds  ;  and  if  you  tried  to  explain 
its  artistic  value  to  such  people,  you  would  waste  your 
explanation.  The  cardinal  bourgeois  virtues  of  tidiness 
and  decency  and  order,  are  always  likely  to  be  offended  by 
the  grandeur  of  the  high  artistic  spirit.  For  example,  a 
mutilated  antique  is  not  exactly  what  the  bourgeois  mind 
would  care  to  have  in  its  parlor. 

Much  of  the  Bohemianism  we  find  amongst  artists  is 
due  to  their  instinctive  revolt  from  middle-class  narrow- 
ness. The  artists  lose  a  great  deal,  no  doubt,  by  yielding 
so  far  to  this  repulsion,  because  there  are  virtues  conspicu- 
ous in  the  middle  class  which  all  men  ought  to  strive  for, 
and  which,  when  faithfully  practised,  add  very  greatly  to 
human  happiness  in  every  condition  of  life.  The  bourgeois 
often  has  his  revenge  and  triumph  in  the  ruin  and  wretch- 
edness consequent  on  the  careless,  irregular  ways  of  Bohe- 
mianism ;  but  the  narrow  prudence  which  hates  ideas, 
scorns  beauty,  and  regulates  every  thing  with  reference  to 


372  The  Artistic  Spirit. 

the  lowest  standard  of  utility,  is  quite  incompatible  with 
artistic  achievement ;  and  not  only  that,  but  it  even  inca- 
pacitates men  for  comprehending  such  achievement. 

3.  As  to  Religion.  —  The  Fine  Arts  illustrate  religion 
willingly,  because  it  affords  good  subjects,  and  there  is 
nothing  in  the  artistic  spirit  in  any  way  incompatible  with 
the  purest  spirit  of  devotion  ;  indeed,  art  draws  us  contin- 
ually towards  a  state  of  mind  akin  to  the  devotional,  by 
requiring  us  to  spend  our  time  in  the  conscious  contempla- 
tion of  the  work  of  the  Supreme  Artist.  Still,  it  is  quite 
certain  that  there  exists  an  opposition  between  art,  which 
takes  pleasure  in  God's  work,  and  all  those  various  forms 
of  religious  fanaticism  which  condemn  pleasure  as  sinful. 
The  healthiest  temper  of  art  is  to  rejoice  in  the  sight  of  all 
visible  beauty,  fully,  heartily,  and  exquisitely ;  the  temper 
of  religious  fanaticism  is  to  turn  away  from  all  earthly 
loveliness,  and  to  mortify  the  desire  of  the  eyes.  Roman 
Catholic  piety  appears  to  find  a  certain  utility  in  art,  for  it 
buys  much ;  but  it  seems  to  like  bad  art  just  as  well  as 
good,  and  even  to  have  a  decided  taste  for  certain  kinds  of 
foppery  —  as  in  the  curling  of  saints'  hair;  or  tawdri- 
ness  —  as  in  the  tinsel  on  their  garments  —  which  true  art 
disdains.  Our  own  most  earnest  Protestants  care  very  lit- 
tle for  art ;  if  they  buy  an  engraving  now  and  then,  it  is 
not  for  any  artistic  quality,  but  for  the  subject,  as  connected 
with  their  faith  ;  or  if  it  be  secular,  for  its  interest  as  a 
portraiture  of  some  great  man  they  admire,  —  some  Crom- 
well, or  Wellington,  or  Havelock.  The  reason  seems  to 
be  that  religious  enthusiasm  is  always  so  ready  to  be  kin- 
dled, so  ready  to  illuminate  and  exalt  every  thing  it  loves 
with  its  own  internal  light,  that  it  does  not  care  whether 
the  work  of  art  be  good  if  it  only  have  the  religious  spirit, 
or  some  plausible  manufactured  imitation  of  it ;  and  it  is 
surprising  what  a  very  poor  mockery  of  it  suffices.  The 
customs  of  society  in  matters  of  outward  observance,  to 
which  so  many  sceptics  find  it  expedient  to  conform,  make 
it  difficult  to  ascertain  with  precision,  what  are  or  have 
been  the  real  convictions  of  great  artists,  but  amongst 
recent  ones  we  may  note  that  Haydon  was  an  extremely 


The  Artistic  Spirit.  373 

religious  man,  who  prayed  almost  literally  without  ceasing, 
whilst  Turner  was  a  sceptic.  Thomas  Seddon,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  eminently  pious,  at  least  during  his  labors 
in  the  East,  but  then  the  artistic  spirit  is  just  what  is 
absent  from  his  works.  Love  of  the  sacred  ground,  rever- 
ence for  the  fact,  earnestness,  patient  industry,  keenness  of 
sight,  delicate  skill  of  hand,  all  these  he  had,  and  exercised 
most  conscientiously,  most  bravely,  but  the  spirit  of  art  he 
had  not.  Of  living  men  it  is  better  not  to  speak  ;  it  is  use- 
less to  mention  those  who  are  religious  without  naming 
others  who  are  not,  and  it  would  be  wrong  to  expose  these 
latter  to  public  odium  on  account  of  opinions  which  can 
only  be  known  privately,  and  which  in  no  wise  injuriously 
affect  their  pictures. 

4.  As  to  Morality.  —  The  general  opinion  about  the 
morality  of  figure  painters  is  this  :  Common  sen.>e  argues 
that  it  is  not  probable  that  men  can  pass  a  great  portion 
of  their  time  in  the  study  of  the  female  form,  without 
undergoing  temptations  which  human  nature  is  seldom 
insensible  enough,  or  resolute  enough,  to  resist.  It  may, 
however,  be  observed,  without  claiming  immaculate  purity 
of  life  for  all  these  artists,  that  the  naked  figure  loses, 
when  seen  habitually,  and  for  purposes  of  serious  study, 
much  of  that  disturbing  influence  over  the  senses  which  a 
beautiful  woman,  unclothed,  would,  in  other  circumstances, 
generally  exercise.  Arid  it  is  only  fair  to  say  that  artists, 
as  a  class,  are  not  more  immoral  than  other  men.  Young 
officers,  young  attorneys,  young  cotton  manufacturers,  have, 
as  a  general  rule,  little  right  to  reproach  young  painters 
with  licentiousness. 

But  it  is  not  so  much  with  morality  of  life  that  we  are 
here  concerned,  as  with  the  morality  of  the  artistic  spirit 
itself.  The  truth  is  that  art,  as  such,  has  nothing  to  do 
with  either  morality  or  immorality ;  it  illustrates  both 
with  equal  artistic  satisfaction,  provided  that  the  quality 
of  the  material  be  to  its  mind.  The  leaning  towards 
sensual  subjects  evinced  by  Gerome,  for  instance,  is,  we 
are  convinced,  due  far  more  to  artistic  predilections  for 
certain  qualities  of  line  and  modelling,  best  found  in  such 


374  The  Artistic  Spirit. 

subjects,  than  to  prurience  of  feeling.  When  the  artistic 
spirit  is  powerful,  and  has  predilections  of  this  kind,  it  is 
apt  to  over-rule  all  other  considerations.  The  spectator, 
who  does  not  share  this  spirit,  sees  immorality  where  none 
was  intended,  and,  as  he  sees  nothing  else,  imagines  that 
the  work  was  produced  only  for  immoral  purposes.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  artist,  who  was  aiming  at  some  purely 
artistic  triumph,  some  masterly  feat  of  drawing  and  arrange- 
ment of  forms,  and  who  selected  the  immoral  subject  be- 
cause it  so  precisely  furnished  the  excuse  for,  and  called 
for  the  display  of,  those  subtleties  of  his  craft,  thinks  no 
more  about  the  immoral  conduct  of  his  figures  than  a  girl 
thinks  of  the  sexual  behavior  of  the  flowers  she  gathers 
in  her  garden.  There  have  been  examples,  no  doubt,  of 
artists  endowed  with  the  true  faculty,  who  had,  notwith- 
standing, religious  convictions  powerful  enough  to  enable 
them  to  withstand  these  artistic  temptations,  but  such  men 
are  rare,  and  they  are  not  the  greatest  painters.  It  is  the 
nature  of  art  to  give  to  artistic  considerations  such  impor- 
tance that  they  gradually  come  to  outweigh  all  others.  I 
remember  taking  part  in  a  discussion  in  a  French  atelier, 
as  to  the  merits  of  a  certain  modern  picture.  The  subject 
was  most  immoral,  but  the  work  had  valuable  artistic 
qualities,  and  it  was  on  these  qualities  alone  that  the 
discussion  turned.  The  disputants  were  insensible  to  the 
apparent  subject,  which,  as  they  all  knew,  was  only  a 
pretext ;  their  entire  attention  was  occupied  by  the  more 
or  less  successful  artistic  achievement  which  was  the  real 
purpose  of  the  painter. 

5.  As  to  the  Military  Spirit.  —  Artists  like  soldiers,  as 
they  like  priests,  for  their  costume  and  action.  But  the 
military  and  ecclesiastical  costumes  have  both  grievously 
declined  in  artistic  interest  since  the  middle  ages.  Golden 
cope  and  jewelled  mitre  were  nobler  to  look  upon  than 
wig  and  lawn  sleeves,  armor  of  steel  inlaid  with  silver 
and  gold  was  better  worth  painting  than  padded  coatee 
or  strapped  pantaloons.  Horace  Vernet  loved  modern 
military  tailoring,  however,  and  knew  the  craft  down  to 
every  braid  and  button.  But  are  the  pictures  of  Vernet 


The  Artistic  Spirit.  375 

due  to  the  artistic  or  the  military  spirit  ?  Is  he  not  rather 
a  soldier  using  paint  for  military  purposes,  than  a  painter 
using  soldiers  for  artistic  ends?  He  had  a  wonderful 
memory,  but  of  the  kind  which  distinguishes  good  gene- 
rals ;  he  remembered  men,  and  uniforms,  and  military 
combinations.  He  drew  very  cleverly,  and  colored  brightly 
and  plausibly ;  yet  who  goes  to  Vernet's  works  for  their 
artistic  qualities  ? 

When  greater  artists  have  painted  battles  it  has  usually 
been  either  for  the  action  of  the  naked  figure,  to  display 
which  they  purposely  stripped  the  combatants,  or  for  the 
costume  of  some  more  picturesque  time  or  nation;  not 
from  any  definitely  military  spirit.  A  good  many  artists, 
too,  have  painted  battles  from  a  love  of  horror  and  slaugh- 
ter, which  it  would  be  grievous  injustice  to  all  noble  sol- 
diers to  call  their  spirit.  A  high-minded  soldier  walks 
through  blood  whither  duty  commands  him,  but  he  does 
not  wallow  in  it. 

6.  As  to  the  Commercial  Spirit.  — What  first  strikes  us 
here  is  the  obvious  reflection  that  commerce  is  the  best  and 
kindest  helper  and  friend  of  the  Fine  Arts,  and  yet  that  the 
spirit  of  commerce  is  directly  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  art. 

In  recognizing  this  opposition  we  by  no  means  intend 
to  detract  from  the  utility  of  the  commercial  spirit,  or  to 
imply  any  wish  to  substitute  for  it  the  artistic  feeling 
generally.  It  is  the  object  of  commerce  to  increase  wealth, 
and  the  result  of  the  general  spread  of  the  commercial 
spirit  in  a  country  is  the  augmentation  of  the  national 
power  and  resources.  If  it  were  to  become  the  general 
custom  of  all  persons  having  capital  enough  to  afford  them 
perfect  leisure,  to  devote  their  whole  time  to  the  study  of 
the  Fine  Arts,  not  only  would  the  country  become  so  enfee- 
bled both  in  money  and  population  as  to  be  incapable  of 
maintaining  its  independence,  but  even  the  Fine  Arts  them- 
selves would  be  ruined  by  the  diminution  of  that  wealth, 
a  great  abundance  of  which  is  absolutely  necessary  to 
their  support. 

Men  of  business,  whose  primary  object  is  gain,  have 
usually  some  difficulty  in  appreciating  the  truest  artists, 


376  The  Artistic  Spirit. 

with  whom  gain  is  the  secondary  and  art  the  first  object. 
Either  they  look  upon  the  Fine  Arts  as  a  trade,  or  else, 
perceiving  that  artists  are  often  indifferent  to  their  pecu- 
niary interests,  they  consider  them  foolish  children,  who 
cannot  discern  what  is  best  to  IDC  done.  No  doubt  a 
commercial  man  who  sets  aside  his  pecuniary  interest  for 
an  idea,  disobeys  and  sets  aside,  in  so  doing  the  com- 
mercial principle.  Some  tradesmen  do  this  knowingly 
from  time  to  time,  as  for  instance,  it  now  and  then  hap- 
pens that  a  publisher  issues  a  book  by  which  he  is  aware 
that  he  is  likely  to  be  a  loser,  merely  because  he  thinks 
that  the  work  ought  not  to  be  stifled  Or,  again,  a  manu- 
facturer occasionally  tries  a  new  invention  less  in  the  hope 
that  it  will  pay  than  from  a  desire  to  give  ingenuity  a 
fair  chance.  Men  who  do  these  things  often  render  great 
services  to  humanity,  but  they  are  not  likely  to  get  much 
reputation  for  wisdom  in  any  society  which  recognizes 
profit  as  the  measure  of  intelligence. 

Now  the  true  artist  outrages  the  commercial  spirit  ha- 
bitually. To  begin  with,  his  choice  of  art  at  all  as  a  means 
of  living  is  in  itself  contrary  to  the  commercial  principle, 
because  art  is  as  a  profession,  too  precarious  to  be  embraced 
by  any  one  not  prepared  to  endure  poverty  contentedly, 
and  contentment  with  poverty  is  an  idea  foreign  to  the 
commercial  mind,  which  is  accustomed  to  consider  it  as 
the  proof  of  incapacity.  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  art  is  a 
bad  investment  of  ability,  and  people  who  make  bad  invest- 
ments seldom  enjoy  high  credit  for  practical  sense.  But 
not  only  in  the  selection  of  his  profession  does  an  artist 
outrage  the  commercial  spirit,  he  often  outrages  it  still 
more  in  the  way  he  follows  his  art.  Instead  of  carefully 
studying  the  market  and  providing  what  the  public  best 
likes,  original  artists  are  apt  to  make  themselves  martyrs 
to  their  artistic  predilections.  A  successful  tradesman 
said  to  me  one  day,  "  In  business  we  provide  what  sells 
best ;  that  is  our  affair.  Whether  a  pattern  is  artistic  or 
not  does  not  concern  us ;  we  encourage  bad  art  if  our  cus- 
tomers prefer  it ;  and  the  shopkeeper  who  proceeds  on 
any  other  principle  is  pretty  sure  to  ruin  himself."  When 


The  Artistic  Spirit.  377 

you  buy  a  carpet  or  a  wall  paper  and  the  shopman  tells 
you  that  the  design  is  beautiful,  what  he  means  is  that 
it  is  in  fashion ;  and  a  thing  gets  into  fashion  as  soon  as 
everybody  thinks  everybody  else  approves  of  it.  The 
temper  of  a  real  artist  is  not  this  shopman's  pliant  mood ; 
it  is  more  like  the  temper  of  William  Wordsworth.  He 
offers  what  he  believes  to  be  the  worthiest  thing  that  he 
is  capable  of  doing,  whether  anybody  likes  it  or  not ;  and 
he  will  not  condescend  to  offer  any  thing  less  worthy  be- 
cause the  people  like  it  better.  This  Wordsworthian  con- 
dition of  mind  looks  self-opinionated,  conceited ;  would  it 
not  be  more  graceful  to  yield  the  point,  conform  to  prece- 
dent, defer  to  the  general  opinion  ?  And  artists,  so  far  as 
they  approach  to  this  state,  are  liable  to  be  accused  of 
vanity,  which  is  the  only  explanation  that  the  world  can 
find  for  such  strange,  unaccountable  ways. 

A  better  explanation,  however,  does  not  seem  unattain- 
able. Original  men  appear  to  be  endowed  with  an  almost 
ungovernable  desire  to  find  an  outlet  for  their  originality ; 
and  it  would  be  as  well  if,  instead  of  setting  down  originality 
as  folly,  we  were  to  give  Heaven  credit  for  understanding 
the  best  interests  of  humanity  when  it  accompanied  every 
good  gift  with  the  condition  that  the  possessor  should  be 
uneasy  till  he  had  set  it  forth.  All  artists,  poets,  inventors, 
thinkers,  are  compelled  to  set  forth  their  gifts.  And  this 
is  the  condition  of  genuineness  in  art  work.  Original  art 
is  not  only  the  best,  it  is  the  only  art  which  has  any  inter- 
est. The  simple  expression  of  a  real  gift,  however  humble, 
is  better  than  the  most  learned  imitation  of  other  men's 
labor.  Nor  is  it  vanity  which  makes  men  try  to  express 
lesser  talents ;  vanity  would  rather  suggest  the  more  ambi- 
tious notion  of  rivalling  great  men  on  their  own  ground. 
William  Hunt,  not  being  a  vain  man,  became  what  we  all 
know;  had  nature  added  vanity  to  his  composition  he 
would  never  have  painted  such  simple  subjects.  His  life 
was  a  bright  triumph  of  that  combination  of  humility  with 
self-reliance  which  distinguishes  the  true  artist. 

It  follows  that  since  a  painter  cannot  without  danger, 
pay  much  attention  to  the  question  of  profit,  he  is  obliged, 


378  The  Artistic  Spirit. 

if  he  would  be  happy,  to  learn  the  philosophy  preached 
by  so  many  ancient  sages,  and  enforced  by  the  authority  of 
no  less  a  teacher  than  the  Head  of  Christianity,  that  pov- 
erty has  its  own  blessings  and  compensations,  and  that  it 
is,  in  some  important  respects,  a  better  condition  than 
wealth.  This  philosophy,  wild  as  it  may  seem  to  the 
worldly,  has  an  immense  attraction  for  noble  minds. 
The  more  so  that  it  allows  of  a  more  cheerful  view  of 
human  life  generally.  If  happiness  is  attainable  by  the 
poor,  we  may  hope  that  a  good  many  more  or  less  com- 
pletely attain  to  it.  But  if  on  the  other  hand  happiness 
cannot  possibly  be  procured  for  less  than  two  thousand 
pounds  a  year,  many  human  beings  are  for  ever  debarred 
from  it.  It  seems  so  glorious  for  a  human  being  to  bear 
bravely  the  suffering  and  contempt  which  poverty  brings, 
so  enviable  to  have  found  the  secret  of  an  inward  happi- 
ness strong  enough  to  dwell  serenely  in  the  midst  of 
privation,  that  heroic  spirits  are  one  and  all  in  love  with 
this  lofty  creed.  A  true  artist  will  eat  bread  and  drink 
water  for  his  art ;  and  this  temper,  able  to  be  happy 
almost  without  money,  often  makes  him  careless  of  it 
when  it  comes ;  if  he  gets  any  he  is  apt"  to  be  foolishly 
generous  with  it,  especially  to  brother  artists  who  are  in 
want.  This  characteristic  of  artists  tends,  however,  to 
diminish  as  their  place  in  general  society  is  better  recog- 
nized. Living  more  in  the  world  than  they  used  to  do 
and  less  in  solitude  or  in  Bohemia,  they  are  learning  a 
new  virtue  and  a  new  vice  —  provident  habits  and  polite 
selfishness.  And  as  the  Philistines  only  practise  Chris- 
tianity so  far  as  it  is  consistent  with  a  very  high  degree 
of  physical  comfort,  the  artist  who,  having  two  coats,  was 
always  ready  to  give  one  of  them,  if  not  both,  to  his  less 
fortunate  brother,  is  now  to  be  sought  rather  in  the  tav- 
erns of  disreputable  Bohemia  than  in  the  pillared  streets 
of  the  West  End. 

7.  As  to  the  Industrial  Spirit. — The  industrial  principle 
is  to  find  out,  first,  how  to  make  a  thing,  and  then  to  pro- 
duce that  identical  thing  in  the  utmost  possible  quantities 
and  at  the  lowest  possible  rate  for  ever  and  ever. 


The  Artistic  Spirit.  379 

The  artistic  principle  is  that  when  once  a  thing  has  been 
perfectly  well  done,  there  is  little  or  no  use  in  trying  to  do 
it  again.  If,  for  instance,  a  water-color  painter  felt  inclined 
to  paint  birds'  nests,  he  would  very  likely  be  deterred  from 
attempting  them  by  the  reflection  that  Hunt  had  done  them 
so  well.  An  industrial  mind  would  endeavor  to  find  out 
means  of  producing  unlimited  copies  of  Hunt's  nests  in 
color. 

This  is  one  reason  the  more  why  good  artists  are  almost 
always  new.  If  a  man  has  the  artistic  spirit  he  will  either 
seek  unused  material  in  nature,  or  if  he  appears  to  accept 
the  old  material  he  will  make  it  new  by  finding  unthought 
of  elements  and  suggestions  in  it. 

Artists,  however,  occasionally  share  the  industrial  spirit 
to  a  certain  extent ;  but  when  they  do,  it  degrades  them 
exactly  in  proportion  to  its  degree.  It  would  be  easy  to 
mention  painters,  who,  to  save  time  and  earn  money,  have 
got  more  or  less  into  habits  of  manufacture,  producing 
many  works  which  are  in  reality  only  modifications  of  one. 
This  gives  great  apparent  manual  facility,  because  such 
works  are,  in  consequence  of  their  frequent  repetition, 
produced  with  great  certainty,  whereas  in  art  of  a  higher 
order  every  new  work  is  an  untried  and  somewhat  hazard- 
ous experiment. 

Of  course  the  industrial  principle  is  right  in  industrial 
business,  where  indeed  it  is  the  only  safe  or  possible  prin- 
ciple. Nothing  can  be  more  remote  from  my  intention 
than  to  express  any  thing  but  the  most  respectful  admira- 
tion for  the  wise  maxims  which  commerce  and  industry 
must  ever  apply  if  they  would  prosper.  The  magnificent 
results  achieved  by  faithful  obedience  to  these  principles 
prove  that  they  are  sound  and  in  harmony  with  natural 
law.  All  I  say  is,  that  commercial  and  industrial  wisdom 
is  not  applicable  to  the  Fine  Arts,  nor  can  the  Pine  Arts  be 
either  effectively  advanced  or  heartily  enjoyed  by  a  people 
which  has  only  that  wisdom. 

In  the  ways  of  labor  in  an  artist's  life,  violations  of  in- 
dustrial principles  are  frequent.  Good  artists  are  always 
laborious,  but  they  are  seldom  steadily  and  regularly  la- 


380  The  Artistic  Spirit. 

borious.  "  "When  you  begin  to  tire  of  your  work,"  said 
Leslie,  "  leave  off;  otherwise  you  will  probably  injure  it. 
You  will  certainly  injure  yourself."  Leslie  was  quite  right 
in  speaking  so  to  young  artists  ;  but  only  fancy  a  cotton 
manufacturer  saying  to  his  hands,  "  When  you  begin  to 
tire  of  your  work,  leave  off!"  The  hard  industrial  law 
requires  the  steadiness  of  a  steam-engine  from  its  servants  ; 
but  then  it  only  requires  the  same  sort  of  work  that  steam- 
engines  may  do  —  incessant  repetition  of  identically  similar 
acts.  The  exigencies  of  Fine  Art  are  far  heavier,  not 
merely  because  it  requires  to  some  extent  the  use  of  the 
mind,  but  still  more  because  it  demands  the  unflagging  ex- 
penditure of  feeling;  and  the  feelings,  more  than  any  other 
of  our  faculties,  are  subject  to  sudden  and  unaccountable 
exhaustion.  Fine  Art  work  is  useless  unless  you  are  in 
the  vein,  and  neither  picture  nor  poem  can  go  on  with  the 
unrelaxing  steadiness  displayed  in  the  weaving  of  a  piece 
of  cotton  cloth.  But  a  prudent  artist,  knowing  this,  will 
contrive  to  have  easier  artistic  work  at  hand  for  his  more 
torpid  hours.  If  he  cannot  paint  passionately  to-day,  he 
may  yet  be  able  to  study  accurately,  and  the  picture  may 
be  laid  aside  for  some  careful  drawing  done  from  nature 
for  information  alone.  The  wise  rule  is  never  to  force 
yourself  to  work  you  are  momentarily  unfit  for,  only  do 
something,  if  it  be  but  to  make  a  note  in  your  memorandum 
book.  . 

8.  As  to  the  Intellectual  Spirit.  —  It  is  a  tendency  of  the 
present  age  to  exalt  the  intellectual  at  the  expense  of  the 
perceptive  and  imaginative  faculties.  For  example,  if,  in 
speaking  of  artists,  I  happen  to  say  that  A.  was  intellectual 
and  B.  not,  nine  readers  out  of  ten  would  conclude  that  I 
was  praising  A.  and  putting  B.  down  ;  whereas  I  might  say 
that  with  perfect  truth  and  all  the  time  reverence  B.  as  a 
man  of  the*  rarest  order  of  soul,  whilst  I  considered  A.  no 
better  than  a  good  many  of  us.  An  attorney  is  generally 
more  intellectual  than  a  saint,  an  average  artillery  officer 
is  likely  to  be  more  intellectual  than  Garibaldi,  any  toler- 
ably good  critic  may  be  more  intellectual  than  the  im- 
mortal colorists.  The  art  of  painting  does  not  proceed  so 


The  Artistic  Spirit.  381 

much  by  intelligence  as  by  sight,  and  feeling,  and  invention. 
Painters  are  often  curiously  feeble  in  their  reasonings 
about  art,  and  the  best  painters  are  commonly  the  worst 
reasoners.  Not  that  their  theories  of  art  are  without  value  ; 
on  the  contrary,  no  art  theories  are  so  valuable  as  theirs  if 
only  we  translate  them  into  more  philosophical  language, 
which  may  be  easily  done  by  taking  into  account  their 
special  points  of  view.  The  unfeigned  contempt  which 
almost  all  ar-tists  feel  for  critics  —  even  for  the  best  of 
them  —  is  partly  explicable  by  the  fact  that  the  artistic 
spirit  can  neither  appreciate  nor  follow  intellectual  methods. 

The  elevation  of  scholarship,  or  quantity  of  traditional 
acquisition,  above  faculty  or  mental  flexibility  and  force, 
which  has  always  hitherto  been  prevalent  in  society,  is  one 
of  those  inevitable  pieces  of  injustice  which  it  is  useless  to 
combat  directly,  but  which,  we  may  reasonably  hope,  will 
yield  in  due  time  to  the  gradual  influences  of  culture.  Thy 
more  serious  attention  given  in  these  days  to  the  Fine  Arts, 
and  the  fact  that  pedantry  is  now  considered  bad  taste,  are 
hopeful  indications.  True  art,  which  requires  free  and 
healthy  faculties,  is  opposed  to  pedantry,  which  crushes  the 
soul  under  a  burden. 

9.  The  Principle  of  Art  for  Art.  —  A  pernicious  prin- 
ciple in  one  way,  that  it  tends  to  deprive  painting  of  much 
of  its  influence  over  the  public  by  directing  its  efforts  to 
aims  in  whicfc  the  public  cannot  possibly  take  any  interest, 
and  yet  a  principle  which  has  always  had  great  weight 
with  artists,  which  regulates  the  admission  of  pictures  to 
exhibitions,  and  has  more  influence  than  any  other  con- 
sideration in  determining  the  rank  which  an  artist's  name 
must  ultimately  hold  in  the  catalogue  of  masters.  Here  is 
a  recent  example.  Many  readers  will  remember  a  picture 
by  Mr.  Whistler,  called  "  The  Woman  in  White."  The 
work  was  unpleasant,  and,  to  those  who  did  not  see  the 
technical  problem  which  it  attempted  to  solve,  most  un- 
interesting; nevertheless  it  did  Mr.  Whistler's  name  good 
amongst  persons  conversant  with  art,  because  it  proved,  on 
his  part,  at  least  an  intelligent  interest  in  his  profession. 
The  difficulty  he  proposed  to  wrestle  with  was  that  of 


382  The  Artistic  Spirit. 

relieving  white  upon  white ;  there  was  some  presumption 
in  the  essay,  but  it  is  quite  in  the  artistic  spirit  to  make 
such  attempts.  The  difficulty  of  painting  white-  objects 
may  be  to  some  extent  understood  by  the  unprofessional 
reader  in  this  way.  Nature  always  lets  us  see  that  a  white 
object  is  white,  even  when,  from  its  situation,  it  is  darker 
than  some  colored  objects.  Nature  can  paint  dark  whites  ; 
but  when  painters  try  to  paint  dark  whites,  they  generally 
end  by  producing  light  grays,  or  dirty,  pale,  yellowish 
browns.  The  difficulty  is  to  paint  a  dark  color  which  shall 
obviously  stand  for  white  and  look  perfectly  pure  ;  and  this 
difficulty  is  quite  infinite,  because  to  find  one  tint  is  not 
enough.  Nature  has  not  only  one  dark  white,  she  has 
millions  of  various  hues,  produced  by  reflected  color,  which 
all  in  their  own  place,  and  under  their  own  peculiar  con- 
ditions, stand  for  white. 

It  will  often  be  found  that  pictures  by  good  painters 
which  seem  to  have  no  subject  worth  representing,  are 
serious  endeavors  to  master  some  peculiar  artistic  dif- 
ficulty ;  and,  when  successful,  these  solutions  of  technical 
problems  are  often  highly  valuable  and  interesting  in  a 
certain  sense.  The  Lorraine's  great  problem  evidently  was 
to  produce  something  which,  by  careful  management,  might 
be  made  to  look  rather  like  the  sun ;  and  it  is  generally 
understood  that  he  resolved  that  problem  so  far  as  its  im- 
mense difficulty  admits  of  a  solution.  The  great  interest 
of  painting  as  a  practical  pursuit  is,  that  its  difficulties  are 
so  infinite,  that  every  new  artist  may  find  some  untried 
one  to  grapple  with,  and  reasonably  indulge  the  hope  that, 
if  he  succeeds,  that  conquest  will  give  him  a  place  in  the 
history  of  art  development.  No  age  has  been  more  fertile 
in  triumphs  of  this  kind  than  our  own,  and  there  is  no 
surer  sign  of  the  vigor  of  a  school  than  the  healthy  disposi- 
tion to  seek  for  new  conquests.  So  long  as  painters  are 
content  to  do  what  has  only  been  done  before,  they  always 
do  less  than  their  predecessors. 

And  this  principle,  of  art  for  art,  makes  all  things  which 
deserve  to  be  painted  interesting;  the  question  is  less 
whether  the  thing  is  of  the  rarest  and  noblest  order  of 


The  Artistic  Spirit.  383 

beauty  than  what  we  can  make  of  it.  For  instance,  in 
landscape  the  grand  and  rare  effects  are,  considered  as 
natural  effects,  by  far  the  most  interesting  ;  but  looking  at 
nature  with  strict  reference  to  art,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
the  problem  of  the  right  management  of  a  few  delicate 
grays  in  some  simple  every-day  effect,  is  quite  as  deep  and 
curious.  I  know  a  very  intelligent  amateur  who  has  de- 
voted years  to  the  study  of  common  sunshine.  Indeed,  it 
may  safely  be  asserted  that  any  artist  or  critic  who  has 
mastered  the  facts  of  appearance  in  any  common  object 
under  common  effects,  knows  much. 

Many  painters,  from  an  insufficient  apprehension  of  the 
importance  of  merely  artistic  qualities,  have  deceived  them- 
selves in  the  hope  that  by  painting  more  learned  and 
thoughtful  pictures,  or  pictures  of  rarer  and  more  wonder- 
ful subjects,  or  pictures  of  more  accurate  veracity  than 
their  contemporaries,  they  might  thereby  achieve  high 
artistic  rank.  For  example,  we  find  many  historical 
painters,  especially  in  Germany,  who  are  thoughtful  and 
philosophical  to  such  a  degree,  that  they  lose  the  healthy 
sensuous  relish  for  beautiful  color  and  fair  form  which  is 
absolutely  indispensable  to  a  good  painter ;  and  we  have 
landscape  painters,  of  whom  the  well-known  traveller,  Mr. 
Atkinson,  is  an  instance,  who  endeavor  to  acquire  artistic 
renown  by  seeking  some  remote  ground  hitherto  unoc- 
cupied ;  and  we  have  young  artists  who  spare  no  pains  to 
secure  veracity.  Now  all  these  things  are  good  things, 
and  there  lies  the  danger,  for  if  they  were  evidently  value- 
less no  sensible  man  would  aim  at  them.  Thought  is  good, 
novelty  is  good,  veracity  is  good ;  but,  alas  !  they  cannot  of 
themselves  produce  art.  I  could  easily  name  fine  pictures, 
priceless  treasures,  in  which  there  is  no  thought,  in  which 
there  never  was  any  novelty,  and  whose  veracity,  both  as 
to  facts  of  history  and  facts  of  science,  is  so  unreliable, 
that  any  well-informed  critic  could  point  out  falsities  and 
impossibilities  by  the  dozen.  Why,  then,  are  such  works 
treasures  ?  Because,  with  all  their  faults,  they  have  quality. 
The  men  who  painted  them  may  not  have  been  either 
thinkers,  or  travellers,  or  historians,  or  men  of  science,  but 


384  The  Artistic  Spirit. 

they  were  artists.  You  or  I  may  know  more,  think  more, 
observe  more,  but  somehow,  with  all  our  efforts,  we  can- 
not paint  so. 

The  world,  notwithstanding  its  ignorance  of  art,  sees 
this  better  than  some  critics  and  connoisseurs  do,  but,  see- 
ing it,  draws  conclusions  of  its  own.  The  world  sees  that 
painting  is  a  pursuit  in  which  thought,  scholarship,  infor- 
mation, go  for  little ;  whereas  a  strange,  unaccountable 
talent,  working  in  obscure  ways  (a  special  talent  as  it 
seems  to  outsiders,  though  in  reality  it  results  from  a  high 
harmony  of  physical  and  mental  endowments),  achieves 
the  only  results  worth  having.  And  the  world  wisely 
hesitates  before  entering  the  arena  of  art.  Here  is  a  field 
in  which  neither  birth  nor  condition  are  of  any  use,  and 
wealth  itself  of  exceedingly  little  ;  here  faculty  alone  avails, 
and  a  kind  of  faculty  so  subtle  and  peculiar,  so  difficult  to 
estimate  before  years  have  been  spent  in  developing  it,  or 
wasted  in  the  vain  attempt  to  develop  it  where  it  does  not 
exist,  that  men  having  already  any  solid  advantages  in  life 
may  well  pause  before  they  stake  them  on  such  a  hazard. 

It  remains  only  to  consider  whether,  in  a  national  sense, 
it  is  wise  to  assist  in  the  spread  of  the  artistic  spirit.  The 
general  opinion  has  concluded  that  it  is.  Our  schools  of 
design,  our  art  exhibitions,  the  great  quantity  of  our  printed 
art  criticism,  all  urge  the  country  towards  an  art  epoch, 
which  promises  ultimately  to  be  brilliant,  for  we  have  both 
the  wealth  and  the  talent  necessary  for  such  a  time.  But 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  national  mind  has  turned 
to  art  from  the  pure  love  for  it.  We  discovered  that  for 
want  of  artistic  counsel  and  help,  we  were  spending  our 
money  badly  every  time  we  tried  either  to  build  a  public 
building  or  weave  a  carpet,  or  color  a  ribbon.  We  found 
out  that  the  French  managed  these  things  better,  and  with 
less  outlay  got  handsomer  results,  and  it  appeared  that  this 
superiority  was  due  to  their  artistic  education.  So  we 
said,  let  us  study  Raphael  that  we  may  sell  ribbons.  This 
was  not  a  very  promising  temper  to  start  with ;  we  were 
laughed  at  for  our  awkwardness,  and  we  did  not  like  to  be 
laughed  at,  so  we  resolved  to  silence  derision  by  the  acqui- 


The  Artistic  Spirit.  385 

sition  of  art  skill.  Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  the  commercial 
spirit  of  this  beginning,  we  are  generally  tending  art-wards, 
and  the  problem  before  us  is  whether  this  artistic  infusion 
will  not  injuriously  affect  the  traditional  character  of  Eng- 
lishmen. It  will  modify  it  very  considerably,  rely  upon  that. 
There  is  a  difference  between  minds  which  are  artistic  and 
minds  which  are  not,  so  strong  and  decided,  that  nobody 
can  question  the  influence  of  art  upon  character.  Not 
that  art  always  influences  in  the  same  way  ;  various  itself, 
it  produces  varied  effects.  But  it  always  alters  our  habit- 
ual estimates  of  things  and  men  ;  it  alters  our  ways  of 
valuing  things.  A  child  in  a  library  values  those  books 
most  which  have  gilt  edges ;  a  book  collector  prizes  the 
rarest  editions ;  but  a  lover  of  reading  for  its  own  sake 
neither  cares  for  gilt  edges  nor  rare  editions,  only  for  the 
excellence  of  the  matter  and  the  accuracy  of  the  text. 
So  is  our  value  for  men  and  nature  affected  by  the  artistic 
spirit.  To  it,  vulgar  show  is  the  gilt-edged  book  ;  the  ex- 
traordinary is  the  rare  edition,  what  it  values  is  often  very 
humble  and  poor  to  eyes  that  cannot  read  it.  •  It  ca»  see- 
majesty  and  dignity  in  many  a  poor  laborer ;  it  can  detect 
meanness  under  the  mantle  of  an  emperor ;  it  can  recog- 
nize grandeur  in  a  narrow  house,  and  pettiness  in  the 
palace  of  a  thousand  chambers. 


U1U7BRSIT7 


Cambridge :  Press  of  John  Wilson  &  Son. 


MARGARET. 

By   SYLVESTER  JUDD.     One  volume.     Price  $1.50. 

SELECTIONS  FROM  SOME  NOTABLE  REVIEWS. 

From  the  Southern  Quarterly  Review. 

"  This  book,  more  than  any  other  that  we  have  read,  leads  us  to  believe  in  the 
possibility  of  a  distinctive  American  Literature.  ...  It  bears  the  impress  of  New 
England  upon  all  its  features.  It  will  be  called  the  Yankee  novel,  and  rightly  ;  for 
nowhere  else  have  we  seen  the  thought,  dialect,  and  customs  of  a  New  England 
Village,  so  well  and  faithfully  represented.  .  .  .  More  significant  to  our  mind  than 
any  book  that  has  yet  appeared  in  our  country.  To  us  it  seems  to  be  a  prophecy 
of  the  future.  It  contemplates  the  tendencies  of  American  life  and  character. 
Nowhere  else  have  we  seen,  so  well  written  out,  the  very  feelings  which  our  rivers 
and  woods  and  mountains  are  calculated  to  awaken.  .  .  .  We  predict  the  time  when 
Margaret  will  be  one  of  the  Antiquary's  text-books.  It  contains  a  whole  magazine 
of  curious  relics  and  habits.  ...  as  a  record  of  great  ideas  and  pure  sentiments,  we 
place  it  among  the  few  great  books  of  the  age." 

Front  the  North  A  inerican  Review. 

"  We  know  not  where  any  could  go  to  find  more  exact  and  pleasing  descriptions 
of  the  scenery  of  New  England,  or  of  the  vegetable  and  animal  forms  which  give  it 
life.  ...  As  a  representation  of  manners  as  they  were,  and  in  many  respects  are 
still,  in  New  England,  this  book  is  of  great  value." 

From  the  London  Athenceum. 

'*  This  book,  though  published  some  time  since  in  America,  has  only  recently 
become  known  here  by  a  few  stray  copies  that  have  found  their  way  over.  Its 
leading  idea  is  so  well  worked  out,  that,  with  all  its  faults  of  detail,  it  strikes  us  as 
deserving  a  wider  circulation.  .  .  .  The  book  bears  the  impress  of  a  new  country, 
and  is  full  of  rough,  uncivilized,  but  vigorous  life.  The  leading  idea  which  it  seems 
intended  to  expound  is,  that  the  surest  way  to  degrade  men  is  to  make  themselves 
degraded ;  that  so  long  as  that  belief  does  not  poison  the  sources  of  experience, 
' all  things'  —  even  the  sins,  follies,  mistakes,  so  rife  among  men  —  can  be  made 
'  to  work  together  for  good.'  This  doctrine,  startling  as  it  may  sound  at  first,  is 
wrought  out  with  a  fine  knowledge  of  human  nature." 

From  the  Anti-Slavery  Standard. 

"  A  remarkable  book,  with  much  good  common  sense  in  it,  full  of  deep  thought, 
pervaded  throughout  with  strong  religious  feeling,  a  full  conception  of  the  essence  of 
Christianity,  a  tender  compassion  for  the  present  condition  of  man,  and  an  abiding 
hope  through  love  of  what  his  destiny  may  be.  ...  But  all  who,  like  Margaret, 
'  dream  dreams,'  and  '  see  visions,'  and  look  for  that  time  to  come  when  man  shall 
have  'worked  out  his  own  salvation,'  and  peace  shall  reign  on  earth,  and  good- will 
to  .men,  will,  if  they  can  pardon  the  faults  of  the  book  for  its  merit,  read  it  with 
avidity  and  pleasure." 

From  the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser. 

"  This  is  quite  a  remarkable  book,  reminding  you  of  Southey's  '  Doctor,'  per- 
haps, more  than  of  any  other  book.  .  .  .  Margaret  is  a  most  angelic  being,  who 
lover,  everybody  and  whom  everybody  loves,  and  whose  sweet  influence  is  felt 
wheiever  she  appears.  She  has  visions  of  ideal  beauty,  and  her  waking  eyes  see 
beauty  and  joy  in  every  thing." 

From  the  Christian  Register. 

"This  is  a  remarkable  book.  Its  scene  is  laid  in  New  England,  and  its  period 
some  half  century  ago.  Its  materials  are  drawn  from  the  most  familiar  elementf 
of  every-day  life.  Its  merits  are  so  peculiar,  and  there  is  so  much  that  is  originaT 
and  rich  in  its  contents,  that,  sooner  or  later,  it  will  be  appreciated.  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  predict  with  assurance  the  fate  of  a  book,  but  we  shall  be  much  mistaken 
if  Margaret  does  not  in  due  season  work  its  way  to  a  degree  of  admiration  seldom 
attained  by  a  work  of  its  class." 

Sold  everywhere.  Mailed,  prepaid,  on  receipt  of  f>r*ce> 
by  the  Publishers, 

ROBERTS   BROTHERS,  BOSTON, 


GEORGE  SAND'S  NOVELS. 


I.    MAUPRAT.    Translated  by  VIRGINIA  VAUGHAN. 
II.    ANTONIA.     Translated  by  VIRGINIA  VAUGHAN. 

IH.    MONSIEUR    SYLVESTRE.       Translated    by    FRANCIS 

GEORGE  SHAW. 
IV.    L'HOMME  DE  NEIGE.  "(The  Man  of  Snow.)    Translated 

by  VIRGINIA  VAUGHAN. 

(OTHERS  IN  PREPARATION.) 

A  standard  Library  Edition,  uniformly  bound,  in  neat  16wzo  volumes.    Each 
volume  sold  separately.    Price  $1.50. 


SOME    NOTICES    OF   "MAUPRAT." 

"An  admirable  translation.  As  to  'Mauprat,'  with  which  novel  Roberts 
Brothers  introduce  the  first  of  French  novelists  to  the  American  public,  if  there 
were  any  doubts  as  to  George  Sand's  power,  it  would  for  ever  set  them  at  rest. 
.  .  .  The  object  of  the  story  is  to  show  how,  by  her  (Edmee's)  noble  nature,  he 
(Mauprat)  is  subsequently  transformed  from  a  brute  to  a  man ;  his  sensual  pas- 
sion to  a  pure  and  holy  love."  —  Harper's  Monthly. 

"  The  excellence  of  George  Sand,  as  we  understand  it,  lies  in  her  com  proton- 
s'. 3n  of  the  primitive  elements  of  mankind.  She  has  conquered  her  way  into  the 
human  heart,  and  whether  it  is  at  peace  or  at  war,  is  the  same  to  her ;  for  she  is 
mistress  of  all  its  moods.  No  woman  before  ever  painted  the  passions  and  the 
emotions  with  such  force  and  fidelity,  and  with  such  consummate  art.  Whatever 
else  she  may  be,  she  is  always  an  artist.  .  .  .  Love  is  the  key-note  of  '  Mauprat,' 
—  love,  and  what  it  can  accomplish  in  taming  an  otherwise  untamable  spirit. 
The  hero,  Bernard  Mauprat,  grows  up  with  his  uncles,  who  are  practically  ban- 
dits, as  was  not  uncommon  with  men  of  their  class,  in  the  provinces,  before  the 
breaking  out  of  the  French  Revolution.  He  is  a  young  savage,  of  whom  the  best 
that  can  be  said  is,  that  he  is  only  less  wicked  than  his  relatives,  because  he  has 
somewhere  within  him  a  sense  of  generosity  and  honor,  to  which  they  are  entire 
strangers.  To  sting  this  sense  into  activity,  to  detect  the  makings  of  a  man  in  this 
brute,  to  make  this  brute  into  a  man,  is  the  difficult  problem,  which  is  worked 
out  by  love,  —  the  love  of  Bernard  for  his  cousin  Edmee,  and  hers  for  him,  —  the 
love  of  two  strong,  passionate,  noble  natures,  locked  in  a  life-and-death  struggle, 
in  which  the  man  is  finally  overcome  by  the  unconquerable  strength  of  woman- 
hood. Only  a  great  writer  could  have  described  such  a  struggle,  and  only  a  great 
artist  could  have  kept  it  within  allowable  limits.  This  George  Sand  has  done,  we 
think  ;  for  her  portrait  of  Bernard  is  vigorous  without  being  coarse,  and  her  situ- 
ations are  strong  without  being  dangerous.  Such,  at  least,  is  the  impression  we 
have  received  from  reading  '  Mauprat,'  which,  besides  being  an  admirable  study 
of  character,  is  also  a  fine  picture  of  French  provincial  life  and  manners."  —  Put- 
nam's Monthly. 

"  Roberts  Brothers  propose  to  publish  a  series  of  translations  of  George 
Sand's  better  novels.  We  can  hardly  say  that  all  are  worth  appearing  !n  English  ; 
but  it  is  certain  that  the  '  better '  list  will  comprise  a  good  many  which  are  worth 
translating,  and  among  these  is  '  Mauprat,'  —  though  by  no  means  the  best  of 
them.  Written  to  show  the  possibility  of  constancy  in  man,  a  love  inspired  be- 
fore and  continuing  through  marriage,  it  is  itself  a  contradiction  to  a  good  many 
of  the  popular  notions  respecting  the  author,  —  who  is  generally  supposed  to  be 
as  indifferent  to  the  sanctities  of  the  marriage  relation  as  was  her  celebrated  an- 
cestor, Augustus  of  Saxony.  .  .  .  The  translation  is  admirable.  It  is  seldom  that 
one  reads  such  good  English  in  a  work  translated  from  any  language.  The  new 
series  is  inaugurated  in  the  best  possible  way,  under  the  hands  of  Miss  Vaughan 
and  we  trust  that  she  may  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  its  continuance.  It 
is  not  every  one  who  can  "read  French  who  can  write  English  so  well." — Old 
and  New. 

Sold  everywhere  Mailed,  postpaid,  on  receipt  of  the  advertised  price, 
by  the  Publishers, 

ROBERTS  BROTHERS,  BOSTON. 


A    PAINTER'S    CAMP. 

BY   PHILIP   GILBERT   IIAMERTON. 

In  Three  Books.    Book  I.,  In  England ;   Book  II.,  In  Scotland ; 
Book  III.,  In  France.     1  vol.  IGmo.     Price  $1.50. 


From  The  Atlantic  Monthly, 

"  They  ('  A  Painter's  Camp  in  the  Highlands.'  and  '  Thoughts  about  Art ')  are 
the  most  useful  books  that  could  be  placed  in.  the  hands  of  the  American  Art 
public.  If  we  were  asked  where  the  most  intelligent,  the  most  trustworthy,  the 
most  practical,  and  the  most  interesting  exposition  of  Modern  Art  and  cognate 
subjects  is  to  be  found,  we  should  point  to  Hamer ton's  writings." 

From  The  Round  Table. 

"  Considered  merely  in  its  literary  aspect,  we  know  of  no  pleasanter  book  than 
this  for  summer  reading.  Artistically,  we  consider  it  a  most  valuable  addition 
to  our  literature." 

From  The  New  York  Tribune. 

"In  the  pursuit  of  his  profession  as  a  landscape-painter,  the  author  has  not 
hesitated  to  plunge  into  the  remote  and  unattractive  nooks  and  corners  of  nature, 
gathering  a  rich  store  of  materials  for  his  pencil,  and  describing  his  whimsical 
experiences  with  a  gayety  and  unction  in  perfect  keeping  with  tbe  subject.  Ilia 
account  of  the  practical  methods  by  which  he  conquered  the  difficulties  of  the 
position  is  instructive  in  the  extreme,  while  the  anecdotes  and  adventures  which 
he  relates  with  such  exuberant  fun  make  his  book  one  of  the  most  entertaining 
of  the  season." 

From- The  Philadelphia  Evening  Telegraph. 

"  We  are  not  addicted  to  enthusiasm,  but  the  little  work  before  us  is  really  so 
full  of  good  points  that  we  grow  so  admiring  as  to  appear  almost  fulsome  in  its 
praise.  .  .  It  has  been  many  a  day  since  we  have  been  called  upon  to  review  a 
work  which  gave  us  such  real  pleasure." 

From  The  Boston  Transcript. 

"  The  volume  is  divided  into  three  books,  recording  the  writer's  experience 
respectively  in  England,  Scotland,  and  France.  The  volume  is  interesting,  not 
merely  for  the  amount  of  suggestive  thought  and  fresh  observation  it  contains 
bearing  on  the  author's  own  profession,  but  for  its  sketches  of  character  and 
scenery,  and  its  shrewd  and  keen  remarks  on  topics  disconnected  with  Art.  There 
are  very  few  chapters  of  foreign  travel,  for  instance,  which  are  so  admirable  in 
every  respect  as  Mr.  Hamerton's  article  on  '  A  Little  French  City  ; '  and  the  gen- 
eral opinions  on  Art  given  in  the  '  Epilogue '  are  worthy  the  attention  of  all 
painters,  especially  of  the  champions  of  extreme  schools.  We  have  never  seen 
any  of  Mr.  Hamerton's  pictures ;  but  if  he  paints  as  delightfully  as  he  writes,  he 
must  be  an  artist  of  more  than  common  skill." 


Sold  by  all  Booksellers.     Mailed,  jwstpaid,  on  receipt  of  price  by  the 
Publishers, 

ROBERTS    BROTHERS, 

BOSTON. 


ARTHUR  HELPS'S  WRITIN 


GS. 


1.  REALMAH.     A  Story.     Price  $2.00. 

2.  CASIMIR  MAREMMA.    A  Novel.     Price  $2.00. 

*.  COMPANIONS   OF  MY   SOLITUDE.     Price  $1.50. 

4.  ESSAYS  WRITTEN  IN  THE  INTERVALS  OF  BUS- 

INESS.    Price  $1.50. 

5.  BREVIA:   Short  Essays  and  Aphorisms.    Price  $1.50. 

From  the  London  Review. 

"The  tale  (REALMAH)  is  a  comparatively  brief  one,  intersected  by  the 
conversations  of  a  variety  of  able  personages,  with  most  of  whose  names 
and  characters  we  are  already  familiar  through  '  Friends  in  Council.' 
Looking  at  it  in  connection  with  the  social  and  political  lessons  that  are 
wrapt  up  in  it,  we  may  fairly  attribute  to  it  a  higher  value  than  could  pos- 
sibly attach  to  a  common  piece  of  fiction." 

From  a  Notice  by  Miss  E.  M.  Converse. 

"There  are  many  reasons  why  we  like  this  irregular  book  (Realmah),  in 
which  we  should  hnd  the  dialogue  tedious  without  the  story;  the  story  dull 
without  the  dialogue;  and  the  whole  unmeaning,  unless  we  discerned  the 
purpose  of  the  author  underlying  the  lines,  and  interweaving,  now  here, 
now  there,  a  criticism,  a  suggestion,  an  aphorism,  a  quaint  illustration,  an 
exhortation,  a  metaphysical  deduction,  or  a  moral  inference. 

"  We  like  a  book  in  which  we  are  not  bound  to  read  consecutively,  whose 
leaves  we  can  turn  at  pleasure  and  find  on  every  page  something  to  amuse, 
interest,  and  instruct.  It  is  like  a  charming  walk  in  the  woods  in  early 
summer,  where  we  are  attracted  now  to  a  lowly  flower  half  hidden  under 
soft  moss ;  now  to  a  shrub  brilliant  with  showy  blossoms ;  now  to  the  gran- 
deur of  a  spreading  tree ;  now  to  a  bit  of  fleecy  cloud ;  and  now  to  the  blue 
of  the  overarching  -*— 


From  a  Notice  by  Miss  H.  W.  Preston. 

u  It  must  be  because  the  reading  world  is  unregenerate  that  Arthur  Helps 
Is  not  a  general  favorite.  Somebody  once  said  (was  it  Ruskin,  at  whose 
imperious  order  so  many  of  us  read  '  Friends  in  Council,'  a  dozen  years 
ago?)  that  appreciation  of  Helps  is  a  sure  test  of  culture.  Not  so  much 
that,  one  may  suggest,  as  of  a  certain  native  fineness  and  excellence  of 
mind.  The  impression  prevails  among  some  of  those  who  do  not  read  him, 
that  Helps  is  a  hard  writer.  Nothing  could  be  more  erroneous.  His  man- 
ner is  simplicity  itself;  his  speech  always  winning,  and  of  a  silvery  dis- 
tinctness. There  are  hosts  of  ravenous  readers,  lively  and  capable,  who, 
if  their  vague  prejudice  were  removed,  would  exceedingly  enjoy  the  gentle 
wit,  the  unassuming  wisdom,  and  the  refreshing  originality  of  the  author 
in  question.  There  are  men  and  women,  mostly  young,  with  souls  that 
sometimes  weary  of  the  serials,  who  need  nothing  so  much  as  a  persuasive 
guide  to  the  study  of  worthier  and  more  enduring  literature.  For  most  of 
those  who  read  novels  with  avidity  are  capable  of  reading  something  else 
with  avidity,  if  they  only  knew  it.  And  sucli  a  guide,  and  pleasantest  of  all 
such  guides,  is  Arthur  Helps.  *  *  Yet  'Casirrrir  Maremma'  is  a  charming 
book,  and,  better  still,  invigorating.  Try  it.  You  are  going  into  the  country 
for  the  summer  months  that  remain.  Have  '  Casimir '  with  you,  and  have 
'  Realmah,'  too.  The  former  is  the  pleasanter  book,  the  latter  the  more  pow» 
erful.  But  if  you  like  one  you  will  like  the  other.  At  the  least  you  will  rise 
from  their  perusal  with  a  grateful  sense  of  having  been  received  for  a  time 
into  a  select  and  happy  circle,  where  intellectual  breeding  is  perfect,  and  the 
struggle  for  brilliancy  unkno\vn. 

Sold  everywhere.  Mailed,  post-paid,  on  receipt  of  adver- 
tised price,  by  the  Publishers, 

ROBERTS   BROTHERS,  BOSTON. 


Leigh    Hun/3    Writings. 


THE  SEER ;  OR,  COMMONPLACES  REFRESHED. 
"  Love  adds  a  precious  Joeing  to  the  eye."  —  Shake- 
speare. In  two  volumes.  i6mo.  Cloth,  gilt  top, 
Price,  $3.00. 

Contents  of  "  The  Seer." 


Pleasure;  On  a  Pebble;  Spring; 
Color ;  Windows ;  Windows,  con- 
sidered from  inside ;  A  Flower  for 
your  Window ;  A  Word  on  Early 
Rising ;  Breakfast  in  Summer ;  Anac- 
reon ;  The  Wrong  Sides  of  Scholar- 
ship and  No  Scholarship  ;  Cricket  ; 
A  Dusty  Day ;  Bricklayers,  and  An 
Old  Book ;  A  Rainy  Day ;  The  East 
Wind;  Strawberries;  The  Waiter: 
The  Butcher;  A  Pinch  of  Snuff; 
Wordsworth  and  Milton  ;  Specimens 
of  Chaucer ;  Peter  Wilkins  and  the 
Flying  Woman  ;  English  and  French 
Females;  English  Male  Costume; 
English  Women  Vindicated ;  Sunday 
in  London ;  Sunday  in  the  Suburbs ; 
A  Human  Being  and  a  Crowd ;  The 


Cat  by  the  Fire ;  Put  up  a  Picture  In 
your  Room  ;  A  Gentleman-Saint  ; 
The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes;  A  "  Now," 
descriptive  of  a  cold  day ;  Ice,  with 
Poets  upon  it ;  The  Piano-forte ; 
Why  Sweet  Music  produces  Sadness ; 
Dancing  and  Dancers ;  Twelfth 
Night ;  Rules  in  Making  Presents  ; 
Romance  of  Commonplace ;  Amiable- 
ness  Superior  to  Common  Intellect ; 
Life  After  Death,  —  Belief  in  Spirits ; 
On  Death  and  Burial ;  On  Washer- 
women ;  The  Nightmare ;  The  Flor- 
entine Lovers ;  Rhyme  and  Reason ; 
Vicissitudes  of  a  Lecture ;  The  For- 
tunes of  Genius;  Poets'  Houses; 
A  Journey  by  Coach;  Inexhaustibility 
of  the  Subject  of  Christmas. 


"  '  The  Seer  '  is  a  capital  companion  in  the  traveller's  pocket,  and  by  the 
bachelor's  coffee-cup,  and  whenever  one  wishes  a  nibble  at  the  good  things  of 
the  library  at  home.  No  one  can  behold  the  face  of  Nature  without  finding  a 
smile  upon  it,  if  he  looks  there  through  the  eyes  of  'The  Seer.'  "  —  Boston 
Daily  A  dvertiser. 

"A  collection  of  delicious  essays,  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  characteristics 
of  the  writer's  genius  and  manner,  and  on  topics  especially  calculated  to  bring 
out  all  the  charms  of  his  g_enial  spirit  and  develop  all  the  niceties  of  his  fluent 
diction,  and  worthy  of  being  domesticated  among  those  choice  family  books 
which  while  away  leisure  hours  with  agreeable  thoughts  and  fancies."  — 
E.  P. 


"  '  The  Seer  '  is  one  of  the  best  specimens  of  the  modern  essayist's  dealing 
with  the  minor  pleasures  and  domestic  philosophy  of  life,  and  is  a  capital  anti- 
dote for  the  too  exciting  books  of  the  hour  ;  it  lures  us  to  musing,  and  what 
Hazlitt  calls  'reposing  on  our  sensations.'"  —  H.  T.  Tuekerman. 


Sold  everywhere.     Mailed,  fast-paid,  by  the  Publishers. 

ROBERTS   BROTHERS, 

Boston. 


Leigh    Hunf  s    U^ritings. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  SONNET.  Compris- 
ing an  Essay  on  the  Cultivation,  History,  and  Varieties 
of  the  species  of  poem  called  the  Sonnet,  with  a  Selec- 
tion of  En.glish  Sonnets,  now  first  published  from  the 
original  MSS.  of  Leigh  Hunt.  An  Essay  on  American 
Sonnets  and  Sonneteers,  with  a  Selection  of  Sonnets, 
by  S.  Adams  Lee.  In  two  volumes.  i6mo.  Cloth, 
gilt  top.  Price,  $3.00. 

"  The  genuine  aroma  of  literature  abounds  in  every  page  of  Leigh  Hunt  a 
delicious  Essay  on  the  Sonnet.  His  mind  shows  itself  imbued  with  a  rich 
knowledge  of  his  subject,  and  this,  illumined  by  the  evidence  of  a  thorough  and 
unaffected  liking  for  it,  makes  him  irresistible." — London  Saturday  Review. 

"  As  a  collection  of  Sonnets,  it  is  not  only  the  fullest  ever  made,  but  by  far 
the  best,  even  excelling  the  dainty  little  collection  by  Dyce,  .  .  .  and  Hunt's 
exhaustive  and  every  way  admirable  introductory  essay  is,  after  all,  much  the 
best  part  of  the  work.  Its  pages  are  steeped  in  thoughtful  scholarship  on  this 
special  theme,  and  sparkle  with  genial  and  veracious  criticism."  —  R.  H.  Stod- 
dard. 

"A  greater  verbal  epicurean  than  Leigh  Hunt  never  lived.  He  luxuriated 
over  niceties  of  expression  and  revelled  in  a  delicious  image  or  apt  phrases ;  he 
was  always  seeking  the  beautiful  in  neglected  fields  of  literature  ;  and  to  renew 
his  acquaintance  with  the  memorable  sonnets  of  Italian  and  English  poets  was 
simply  a  labor  of  love.  He  therefore  wrote  an  essay  giving  the  history  of  the 
sonnet,  and  defining  its  conditions  and  possibilities,  expatiated  on  the  special 
merits  of  each  renowned  vyriter  in  this  sphere,  and  indicated  the  most  striking 
examples  of  success  in  artistic  and  effective  construction  or  eloquent  feeling  as 
thus  embodied  and  expressed."  —  H.  T.  Tuckerman. 

"  Whether  Leigh  Hunt  was  a  man  of  genius,  or  only  of  surpassing  talent 
is  a  question  which  we /willingly  leave  to  the  critics  who  find  tweedledee  differ 
ent  from  tweedledum  in  kind  as  well  as  degree.  We  are  content  with  the  fact 
that  he  has  some  virtue  which  makes  us  read  every  book  of  his  we  open,  and 
which  leaves  us  more  his  friend  at  the  end  than  we  were  before.  Indeed,  it 
would  be  hard  not  to  love  so  cheerful  and  kindly  a  soul,  even  if  his  art  were 
ever  less  than  charming.  But  literature  seems  to  have  always  been  a  gay  sci- 
ence with  him.  We  never  see  his  Muse  as  the  harsh  step-mother  she  really 
was :  we  are  made  to  think  her  a  gentle  liege-lady,  served  in  the  airiest  spirit  of 
chivalric  devotion  ;  and  in  the  Essay  in  this  '  Book  of  the  Sonnet '  her  aspect 
is  as  sunny  as  any  the  poet  has  ever  shown  us. 

"  The  Essay  is  printed  for  the  first  time,  and  it  was  written  in  Hunt's  ol» 
age ;  but  it  is  full  of  light-heartedness,  and  belongs  in  feeling  to  a  period  a* 
least  as  early  as  that  which  produced  the  '  Stories  from  the  Italian  Poets.'  It 
is  one  of  those  studies  in  which  he  was  always  happy,  for  it  keeps  him  chiefly 
in  Italy ;  and  when  it  takes  him  from  Italy,  it  only  brings  him  into  the  Italian 
air  of  English  sonnetry, — a  sort  of  soft  Devonshire  coast,  bordering  the  rug- 
|»iij?  native  poetry  on  the  south." —  W.  D.  Howells,  in  Atlantic  Monthly. 


Sold  everywhere.     Mailed,  postpaid,  by  the  Publishers. 

ROBERTS   BROTHERS, 
.        .,  Boston. 


Of  TELE 


(US  IV  B  RSI  T  71 


dued 


YB  17471 


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